CHAPTER VII. CROSS-EXAMININGS
While Barrington and his lawyer sat in conclave over the details of the great suit, Stapylton hurried along his road with all the speed he could summon. The way, which for some miles led along the river-side, brought into view M’Cormick’s cottage, and the Major himself, as he stood listlessly at his door.’
Halting his carriage for a moment, Stapylton jumped out and drew nigh the little quickset hedge which flanked the road.
“What can I do for you in the neighborhood of Manchester, Major? We are just ordered off there to ride down the Radicals.”
“I wish it was nearer home you were going to do it,” said he, crankily. “Look here,” – and he pointed to some fresh-turned earth, – “they were stealing my turnips last night.”
“It would appear that these fellows in the North are growing dangerous,” said Stapylton.
“‘T is little matter to us,” said M’Cormick, sulkily. “I’d care more about a blight in the potatoes than for all the politics in Europe.”
“A genuine philosopher! How snug you are here, to be sure! A man in a pleasant nook like this can well afford to smile at the busy ambitions of the outer world. I take it you are about the very happiest fellow I know?”
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” said he, peevishly.
“This spot only wants what I hinted to you t’other evening, to be perfection.”
“Ay!” said the other, dryly.
“And you agree with me heartily, if you had the candor to say it. Come, out with it, man, at once. I saw your gardener this morning with a great basketful of greenery, and a large bouquet on the top of it, – are not these significant signs of a projected campaign? You are wrong, Major, upon my life you are wrong, not to be frank with me. I could, by a strange hazard, as the newspapers say, ‘tell you something to your advantage.’”
“About what?”
“About the very matter you were thinking of as I drove up. Come, I will be more generous than you deserve.” And, laying his arm on M’Cormick’s shoulder, he halt whispered in his ear; “It is a good thing, – a deuced good thing! and I promise you, if I were a marrying man, you ‘d have a competitor. I won’t say she ‘ll have one of the great fortunes people rave about, but it will be considerable, – very considerable.”
“How do you know, or what do you know?”
“I ‘ll tell you in three words. How I know is, because I have been the channel for certain inquiries they made in India. What I know is, the Directors are sick of the case, they are sorely ashamed of it, and not a little uneasy lest it should come before the public, perhaps before the Parliament. Old Barrington has made all negotiation difficult by the extravagant pretensions he puts forward about his son’s honor, and so forth. If, however, the girl were married, her husband would be the person to treat with, and I am assured with him they would deal handsomely, even generously.”
“And why would n’t all this make a marrying man of you, though you were n’t before?”
“There’s a slight canonical objection, if you must know,” said Stapylton, with a smile.
“Oh, I perceive, – a wife already! In India, perhaps?”
“I have no time just now for a long story, M’Cormick,” said he, familiarly, “nor am I quite certain I ‘d tell it if I had. However, you know enough for all practical purposes, and I repeat to you this is a stake I can’t enter for, – you understand me?”
“There’s another thing, now,” said M’Cormick; “and as we are talking so freely together, there’s no harm in mentioning it. It ‘s only the other day, as I may call it, that we met for the first time?”
“Very true: when I was down here at Cobham.”
“And never heard of each other before?”
“Not to my knowledge, certainly.”
“That being the case, I ‘m curious to hear how you took this wonderful interest in me. It wasn’t anything in my appearance, I ‘m sure, nor my manner; and as to what you ‘d hear about me among those blackguards down here, there’s nothing too bad to say of me.”
“I’ll be as frank as yourself,” said Stapylton, boldly; “you ask for candor, and you shall have it. I had n’t talked ten minutes with you till I saw that you were a thorough man of the world; the true old soldier, who had seen enough of life to know that whatever one gets for nothing in this world is just worth nothing, and so I said to myself, ‘If it ever occurs to me to chance upon a good opportunity of which I cannot from circumstances avail myself, there’s my man. I’ll go to him and say, “M’Cormick, that’s open to you, there’s a safe thing!” And when in return he ‘d say, “Stapylton, what can I do for you?” my answer would be, “Wait till you are satisfied that I have done you a good turn; be perfectly assured that I have really served you.” And then, if I wanted a loan of a thousand or fifteen hundred to lodge for the Lieutenant-Colonelcy, I ‘d not be ashamed to say, “M’Cormick, let me have so much.”’”
“That’s it, is it?” said M’Cormick, with a leer of intense cunning. “Not a bad bargain for you, anyhow. It is not every day that a man can sell what is n’t his own.”
“I might say, it’s not every day that a man regards a possible loan as a gift, but I ‘m quite ready to reassure all your fears on that score; I’ll even pledge myself never to borrow a shilling from you.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that; you took me up so quick,” said the old fellow, reddening with a sense of shame he had not felt for many a year. “I may be as stingy as they call me, but for all that I ‘d stand to a man who stands to me.”
“Between gentlemen and men of the world these things are better left to a sense of an honorable understanding than made matters of compact. There is no need of another word on the matter. I shall be curious, however, to know how your project speeds. Write to me, – you have plenty of time, – and write often. I ‘m not unlikely to learn something about the Indian claim, and if I do, you shall hear of it.”
“I’m not over good at pen and ink work; indeed, I haven’t much practice, but I’ll do my best.”
“Do, by all means. Tell me how you get on with Aunt Dinah, who, I suspect, has no strong affection for either of us. Don’t be precipitate; hazard nothing by a rash step; secure your way by intimacy, mere intimacy: avoid particular attentions strictly; be always there, and on some pretext or other – But why do I say all this to an old soldier, who has made such sieges scores of times?”
“Well, I think I see my way clear enough,” said the old fellow, with a grin. “I wish I was as sure I knew why you take such an interest in me.”
“I believe I have told you already; I hope there is nothing so strange in the assurance as to require corroboration. Come, I must say good-bye; I meant to have said five words to you, and I have stayed here five-and-twenty minutes.”
“Would n’t you take something? – could n’t I offer you anything?” said M’Cormick, hesitatingly.
“Nothing, thanks. I lunched before I started; and although old Dinah made several assaults upon me while I ate, I managed to secure two cutlets and part of a grouse-pie, and a rare glass of Madeira to wash them down.”
“That old woman is dreadful, and I’ll take her down a peg yet, as sure as my name is Dan.”
“No, don’t, Major; don’t do anything of the kind. The people who tame tigers are sure to get scratched at last, and nobody thanks them for their pains. Regard her as the sailors do a fire-ship; give her a wide berth, and steer away from her.”
“Ay, but she sometimes gives chase.”
“Strike your flag, then, if it must be; for, trust me, you ‘ll not conquer her.”
“We ‘ll see, we ‘ll see,” muttered the old fellow, as he waved his adieux, and then turned back into the house again.
As Stapylton lay back in his carriage, he could not help muttering a malediction on the “dear friend” he had just parted with. When the bourgeois gentilhomme objected to his adversary pushing him en tierce while he attacked him en quarte, he was expressing a great social want, applicable to those people who in conversation will persist in saying many things which ought not to be uttered, and expressing doubts and distrusts which, however it be reasonable to feel, are an outrage to avow.
“The old fox,” said Stapylton, aloud, “taunted me with selling what did not belong to me; but he never suspects that I have bought something without paying for it, and that something himself! Yes, the mock siege he will lay to the fortress will occupy the garrison till it suits me to open the real attack, and I will make use of him, besides, to learn whatever goes on in my absence. How the old fellow swallowed the bait! What self-esteem there must be in such a rugged nature, to make him imagine he could be successful in a cause like this! He is, after all, a clumsy agent to trust one’s interest to. If the choice had been given me, I’d far rather have had a woman to watch over them. Polly Dill, for instance, the very girl to understand such a mission well. How adroitly would she have played the game, and how clearly would her letters have shown me the exact state of events!”
Such were the texts of his musings as he drove along, and deep as were his thoughts, they never withdrew him, when the emergency called, from attention to every detail of the journey, and he scrutinized the post-horses as they were led out, and apportioned the rewards to the postilions as though no heavier care lay on his heart than the road and its belongings. While he rolled thus smoothly along, Peter Barrington had been summoned to his sister’s presence, to narrate in full all that he had asked, and all that he had learned of Stapylton and his fortunes.
Miss Dinah was seated in a deep armchair, behind a formidable embroidery-frame, – a thing so complex and mysterious in form as to suggest an implement of torture. At a short distance off sat Withering, with pen, ink, and paper before him, as if to set down any details of unusual importance; and into this imposing presence poor Barrington entered with a woful sense of misgiving and humiliation.
“We have got a quiet moment at last, Peter,” said Miss Barrington. “I have sent the girls over to Brown’s Barn for the tulip-roots, and I have told Darby that if any visitors came they were to be informed we were particularly occupied by business, and could see no one.”
“Just so,” added Withering; “it is a case before the Judge in Chamber.”
“But what have we got to hear?” asked Barrington, with an air of innocence.
“We have got to hear your report, brother Peter; the narrative of your late conversation with Major Stapylton; given, as nearly as your memory will serve, in the exact words and in the precise order everything occurred.”
“October the twenty-third,” said Withering, writing as he spoke; “minute of interview between P. B. and Major S. Taken on the same morning it occurred, with remarks and observations explanatory.”
“Begin,” said Dinah, imperiously, while she worked away without lifting her head. “And avoid, so far as possible, anything beyond the precise expression employed.”
“But you don’t suppose I took notes in shorthand of what we said to each other, do you?”
“I certainly suppose you can have retained in your memory a conversation that took place two hours ago,” said Miss Dinah, sternly.
“And can relate it circumstantially and clearly,” added Withering.
“Then I ‘m very sorry to disappoint you, but I can do nothing of the kind.”
“Do you mean to say that you had no interview with Major Stapylton, Peter?”
“Or that you have forgotten all about it?” said Withering.
“Or is it that you have taken a pledge of secrecy, brother Peter?”
“No, no, no! It is simply this, that though I retain a pretty fair general impression of what I said myself, and what he said afterwards, I could no more pretend to recount it accurately than I could say off by heart a scene in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’”
“Why don’t you take the ‘Comedy of Errors’ for your illustration, Peter Barrington? I ask you, Mr. Withering, have you in all your experience met anything like this?”
“It would go hard with a man in the witness-box to make such a declaration, I must say.”
“What would a jury think of, what would a judge say to him?” said she, using the most formidable of all penalties to her brother’s imagination. “Wouldn’t the court tell him that he would be compelled to speak out?”
“They’d have it out on the cross-examination, at all events, if not on the direct.”
“In the name of confusion, what do you want with me?” exclaimed Peter, in despair.
“We want everything, – everything that you heard about this man. Who he is, what he is; what by the father’s side, what by the mother’s; what are his means, and where; who knows him, who are his associates. Bear in mind that to us, here, he has dropped out of the clouds.”
“And gone back there too,” added Withering.
“I wish to Heaven he had taken me with him!” sighed Peter, drearily.
“I think in this case, Miss Barrington,” said Withering, with a well-affected gravity, “we had better withdraw a juror, and accept a nonsuit.”
“I have done with it altogether,” said she, gathering up her worsted and her needles, and preparing to leave the room.
“My dear Dinah,” said Barrington, entreatingly, “imagine a man as wanting in tact as I am, – and as timid, too, about giving casual offence, – conducting such an inquiry as you committed to my hands. Fancy how, at every attempt to obtain information, his own boldness, I might call it rudeness, stared him in the face, till at last, rather than push his investigations, he grew puzzled how to apologize for his prying curiosity.”
“Brother, brother, this is too bad! It had been better to have thought more of your granddaughter’s fate and less of your own feelings.” And with this she flounced out of the room, upsetting a spider-table, and a case of stuffed birds that stood on it, as she passed.
“I don’t doubt but she ‘s right, Tom,” said Peter, when the door closed.
“Did he not tell you who he was, and what his fortune? Did you really learn nothing from him?”
“He told me everything; and if I had not been so cruelly badgered, I could have repeated every word of it; but you never made a hound true to the scent by flogging him, Tom, – is n’t that a fact, eh?” And consoled by an illustration that seemed so pat to his case, he took his hat and strolled out into the garden.
CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL CONYERS
In a snug little room of the Old Ship Hotel, at Dover, a large, heavy man, with snow-white hair, and moustaches, – the latter less common in those days than the present, – sat at table with a younger one, so like him that no doubt could have existed as to their being father and son. They had dined, and were sitting over their wine, talking occasionally, but oftener looking fondly and affectionately at each other; and once, by an instinct of sudden love, grasping each other’s hand, and sitting thus several minutes without a word on either side.
“You did not expect me before to-morrow, Fred,” said the old man, at last.
“No, father,” replied young Conyers. “I saw by the newspapers that you were to dine at the Tuileries on Tuesday, and I thought you would not quit Paris the same evening.”
“Yes; I started the moment I took off my uniform. I wanted to be with you, my boy; and the royal politeness that detained me was anything but a favor. How you have grown, Fred, – almost my own height, I believe.”
“The more like you the better,” said the youth, as his eyes ran over, and the old man turned away to hide his emotion.
After a moment he said: “How strange you should not have got my letters, Fred; but, after all, it is just as well as it is. I wrote in a very angry spirit, and was less just than a little cool reflection might have made me. They made no charges against me, though I thought they had. There were grumblings and discontents, and such-like. They called me a Rajah, and raked up all the old stories they used to circulate once on a time about a far better fellow – ”
“You mean Colonel Barrington, don’t you?” said Fred.
“Where or how did you hear of that name?” said the old man, almost sternly.
“An accident made me the guest of his family, at a little cottage they live in on an hish river. I passed weeks there, and, through the favor of the name I bore, I received more kindness than I ever before met in life.”
“And they knew you to be a Conyers, and to be my son?”
“It was Colonel Barrington’s aunt was my hostess, and she it was who, on hearing my name, admitted me at once to all the privileges of old friendship. She told me of the close companionship which once subsisted between you and her nephew, and gave me rolls of his letters to read wherein every line spoke of you.”
“And Mr. Barrington, the father of George, how did he receive you?”
“At first with such coolness that I could n’t bring myself to recross his threshold. He had been away from home when I arrived, and the day of his return I was unexpectedly presented to him by his sister, who evidently was as unprepared as myself for the reception I met with.”
“And what was that reception, – how was it? Tell me all as it happened.”
“It was the affair of a moment. Miss Barrington introduced me, saying, ‘This is the son of poor George’s dearest friend, – this is a Conyers;’ and the old man faltered, and seemed like to faint, and after a moment stammered out something about an honor he had never counted upon, – a visit he scarcely could have hoped for; and, indeed, so overcome was he that he staggered into the house only to take to his bed, where he lay seriously ill for several days after.”
“Poor fellow! It was hard to forgive, – very hard.”
“Ay, but he has forgiven it – whatever it was – heartily, and wholly forgiven it. We met afterwards by a chance in Germany, and while I was hesitating how to avoid a repetition of the painful scene which marked our first meeting, he came manfully towards me with his hand out, and said, ‘I have a forgiveness to beg of you; and if you only know how I long to obtain it, you would scarce say me no.’”
“The worthy father of poor George! I think I hear him speak the very words himself. Go on, Fred, – go on, and tell me further.”
“There is no more to tell, sir, unless I speak of all the affectionate kindness he has shown, – the trustfulness and honor with which he has treated me. I have been in his house like his own son.”
“Ah! if you had known that son! If you had seen what a type of a soldier he was! The most intrepid, the boldest fellow that ever breathed; but with a heart of childlike simplicity and gentleness. I could tell you traits of him, of his forbearance, his forgiveness, his generous devotion to friendship, that would seem to bespeak a nature that had no room for other than soft and tender emotion; and yet, if ever there was a lion’s heart within a man’s bosom it was his.” For a moment or two the old man seemed overcome by his recollections, and then, as if by an effort, rallying himself, he went on: “You have often heard the adage, Fred, that enjoins watching one’s pennies and leaving the pounds to take care of themselves; and yet, trust me, the maxim is truer as applied to our morals than our money. It is by the smaller, finer, and least important traits of a man that his fate in life is fashioned. The caprices we take no pains to curb, the tempers we leave unchecked, the petty indulgences we extend to our vanity and self-love, – these are the great sands that wreck us far oftener than the more stern and formidable features of our character. I ought to know this truth; I myself lost the best and truest and the noblest friend that ever man had, just from the exercise of a spirit of bantering and ridicule which amused those about me, and gave me that pre-eminence which a sarcastic and witty spirit is sure to assert. You know already how George Barrington and I lived together like brothers. I do not believe two men ever existed more thoroughly and sincerely attached to each other. All the contrarieties of our dispositions served but to heighten the interest that linked us together. As for myself, I was never wearied in exploring the strange recesses of that great nature that seemed to unite all that could be daring and dashing in man with the tenderness of a woman. I believe I knew him far better than he knew himself. But to come to what I wanted to tell you, and which is an agony to me to dwell on. Though for a long while our close friendship was known in the regiment, and spoken of as a thing incapable of change, a sort of rumor – no, not even a rumor, but an impression – seemed to gain, that the ties between us were looser on my side than his; that George looked up to me, and that I, with the pride of a certain superiority, rather lorded it over him. This feeling became painfully strengthened when it got about that Barrington had lent me the greater part of the purchase-money for my troop, – a promotion, by the way, which barred his own advancement, – and it was whispered, so at least I heard, that Barrington was a mere child in my hands, whom I rebuked or rewarded at pleasure. If I could have traced these rumors to any direct source, I could have known how to deal with them. As it was, they were vague, shadowy, and unreal; and their very unsubstantiality maddened me the more. To have told George of them would have been rasher still. The thought of a wrong done to me would have driven him beyond all reason, and he would infallibly have compromised himself beyond recall. It was the very first time in my life I had a secret from him, and it eat into my heart like a virulent disease. The consciousness that I was watched, the feeling that eyes were upon me marking all I did, and tongues were commenting on all I said, exasperated me, and at one moment I would parade my friendship for Barrington in a sort of spirit of defiance, and at another, as though to give the lie to my slanderers, treat him with indifference and carelessness, as it were, to show that I was not bound to him by the weight of a direct obligation, and that our relations involved nothing of dependence. It was when, by some cruel mischance, I had been pursuing this spirit to its extreme, that the conversation one night at mess turned upon sport and tiger-hunting. Many stories were told, of course, and we had the usual narratives of hairbreadth escapes and perils of the most appalling kind; till, at length, some one – I forget exactly who it was – narrated a single-handed encounter with a jaguar, which in horror exceeded anything we had heard before. The details were alone not so terrible, but the circumstances so marvellous, that one and all who listened cried out, ‘Who did it?’
“‘The man who told me the tale,’ replied the narrator, ‘and who will probably be back to relate it here to you in a few days, – Colonel Barrington.’
“I have told you the devilish spirit which had me in possession. I have already said that I was in one of those moods of insolent mockery in which nothing was sacred to me. No sooner, then, did I hear Barrington’s name than I burst into a hearty laugh, and said, ‘Oh! if it was one of George Barrington’s tigers, you ought to have mentioned that fact at the outset. You have been exciting our feelings unfairly.’
“‘I assume that his statement was true,’ said the other, gravely.
“‘Doubtless; just as battle-pieces are true, that is, pic-torially true. The tiger did nothing that a tiger ought not to do, nor did George transgress any of those “unities” which such combats require. At the same time, Barring-ton’s stories have always a something about them that stamps the authorship, and you recognize this trait just as you do a white horse in a picture by Wouvermans.’
“In this strain I went on, heated by my own warmed imagination, and the approving laughter of those around me. I recounted more than one feat of Barrington’s, – things which I knew he had done, some of them almost incredible in boldness. These I told with many a humorous addition and many an absurd commentary, convulsing the listeners with laughter, and rendering my friend ridiculous.
“He came back from the hills within the week, and before he was two hours in his quarters he had heard the whole story. We were at luncheon in the mess-room when he entered, flushed and excited, but far more moved by emotion than resentment.
“‘Ormsby,’ said he, ‘you may laugh at me to your heart’s content and I’ll never grumble at it; but there are some young officers here who, not knowing the ties that attach us, may fancy that these quizzings pass the limits of mere drollery, and even jeopardize something of my truthfulness. You, I know, never meant this any more than I have felt it, but others might, and might, besides, on leaving this and sitting at other tables, repeat what they had heard here. Tell them that you spoke of me as you have a free right to do, in jest, and that your ridicule was the good-humored banter of a friend, – of a friend who never did, never could, impugn my honor.’
“His eyes were swimming over, and his lips trembling, as he uttered the last words. I see him now, as he stood there, his very cheek shaking in agitation. That brave, bold fellow, who would have marched up to a battery without quailing, shook like a sickly girl.
“‘Am I to say that you never draw the long-bow, George?’ asked I, half insolently.
“‘You are to say, sir, that I never told a lie,’ cried he, dark with passion.
“‘Oh, this discussion will be better carried on elsewhere,’ said I, as I arose and left the room.
“As I was in the wrong, totally in the wrong, I was passionate and headstrong. I sat down and wrote a most insolent letter to Barrington. I turned all the self-hate that was consuming me against my friend, and said I know not what of outrage and insult. I did worse; I took a copy of my letter, and declared that I would read it to the officers in the mess-room. He sent a friend to me to beg I would not take this course of open insult. My answer was, ‘Colonel Barrington knows his remedy.’ When I sent this message, I prepared for what I felt certain would follow. I knew Barrington so well that I thought even the delay of an hour, then two hours, strange. At length evening drew nigh, and, though I sat waiting in my quarters, no one came from him, – not a letter nor a line apprised me what course he meant to take.
“Not caring to meet the mess at such a moment, I ordered my horses and drove up to a small station about twenty miles off, leaving word where I was to be found. I passed three days there in a state of fevered expectancy. Barrington made no sign, and, at length, racked and distressed by the conflict with myself, – now summoning up an insolent spirit of defiance to the whole world, now humbling myself in a consciousness of the evil line I had adopted, – I returned one night to my quarters. The first news that greeted me was that Barrington had left us. He had accepted the offer of a Native command which had been made to him some months before, and of which we had often canvassed together all the advantages and disadvantages. I heard that he had written two letters to me before he started, and torn them up after they were sealed. I never heard from him, never saw him more, till I saw his dead body carried into camp the morning he fell.
“I must get to the end of this quickly, Fred, and I will tell you all at once, for it is a theme I will never go back on. I came to England with despatches about two years after Barrington’s death. It was a hurried visit, for I was ordered to hold myself in readiness to return almost as soon as I arrived. I was greatly occupied, going about from place to place, and person to person, so many great people desired to have a verbal account of what was doing in India, and to hear confidentially what I thought of matters there. In the midst of the mass of letters which the post brought me every morning, and through which, without the aid of an officer on the staff, I could never have got through, there came one whose singular address struck me. It was to ‘Captain Ormsby Conyers, 22d Light Dragoons,’ a rank I had held fourteen years before that time in that same regiment. I opined at once that my correspondent must have been one who had known me at that time and not followed me in the interval. I was right. It was from old Mr. Barrington, – George Barrington’s father. What version of my quarrel with his son could have reached him, I cannot even guess, nor by what light he read my conduct in the affair; but such a letter I never read in my life. It was a challenge to meet him anywhere, and with any weapon, but couched in language so insulting as to impugn my courage, and hint that I would probably shelter myself behind the pretext of his advanced age. ‘But remember,’ said he, ‘if God has permitted me to be an old man, it is you who have made me a childless one!’”
For a few seconds he paused, overcome by emotion, and then went on: “I sat down and wrote him a letter of contrition, almost abject in its terms. I entreated him to believe that for every wrong I had done his noble-hearted son, my own conscience had repaid me in misery ten times told; that if he deemed my self-condemnation insufficient, it was open to him to add to it whatever he wished of obloquy or shame; that if he proclaimed me a coward before the world, and degraded me in the eyes of men, I would not offer one word in my defence. I cannot repeat all that I said in my deep humiliation. His answer came at last, one single line, re-enclosing my own letter to me: ‘Lest I should be tempted to make use of this letter, I send it back to you; there is no need of more between us.’
“With this our intercourse ceased. When a correspondence was published in the ‘Barrington Inquiry,’ as it was called, I half hoped he would have noticed some letters of mine about George; but he never did, and in his silence I thought I read his continued unforgiveness.”
“I hope, father, that you never believed the charges that were made against Captain Barrington?”
“Not one of them; disloyalty was no more his than cowardice. I never knew the Englishman with such a pride of country as he had, nor could you have held out a greater bribe to him, for any achievement of peril, than to say, ‘What a gain it would be for England!’”