"What do you mean?"
"I certainly shan't go to the East without shaking hands once more with Marie and Sabina; and if in so doing I pass that fellow, it's a pity if I don't have a snap shot at him."
"Tom! Tom! I had hoped your duelling days were over."
"They will be, over, when one can get the law to punish such puppies; but not till then. Hang the fellow! What business had he with her at all, if he didn't intend to marry her?"
"I tell you, as I told you before, it is she who will not marry him."
"And yet she's breaking her heart for him. I can see it all plain enough, Claude. She has found him out only too late. I know him luxurious, selfish, blazé; would give a thousand dollars to-morrow, I believe, like the old Roman, for a new pleasure: and then amuses himself with her till he breaks her heart! Of course she won't many him: because she knows that if he found out her Quadroon bloodah, that's it! I'll lay my life he has found it out already, and that is why he has bolted!"
Claude had no answer to give. That talk at the Exhibition made it only too probable.
"You think so yourself, I see! Very well. You know that whatever I have been to others, that girl has nothing against me."
"Nothing against you? Why, she owes you honour, life, everything."
"Never mind that. Only when I take a fancy to begin, I'll carry it through. I took to that girl, for poor Wyse's sake; and I'll behave by her to the last as he would wish; and he who insults her, insults me. I won't go out of my way to find Stangrave: but if I do, I'll have it out!"
"Then you will certainly fight. My dearest Tom, do look into your own heart, and see whether you have not a grain or two of spite against him left. I assure you you judge him too harshly."
"Humthat must take its chance. At least, if we fight, we fight fairly and equally. He is a brave manI will do him that justiceand a cool one; and used to be a sweet shot. So he has just as good a chance of shooting me, if I am in the wrong, as I have of shooting him, if he is."
"But your father?"
"I know. That is very disagreeable; and all the more so because I am going to insure my lifea pretty premium they will make me pay!and if I'm killed in a duel, it will be forfeited. However, the only answer to that is, that either I shan't fight, or if I do, I shan't be killed. You know I don't believe in being killed, Claude."
"Tom! Tom! The same as ever!" said Claude sadly.
"Well, old man, and what else would you have me? Nobody could ever alter me, you know; and why should I alter myself? Here I am, after all, alive and jolly; and there is old daddy, as comfortable as he ever can be on earth: and so it will be to the end of the chapter. There! let's talk of something else."
CHAPTER XVI.
COME AT LAST
Now, as if in all things Tom Thurnall and John Briggs were fated to take opposite sides, Campbell lost ground with Elsley as fast as he gained it with Thurnall. Elsley had never forgiven himself for his passion that first morning. He had shown Campbell his weak side, and feared and disliked him accordingly. Beside, what might not Thurnall have told Campbell about him? And what use might not the Major make of his secret? Besides, Elsley's dread and suspicion increased rapidly when he discovered that Campbell was one of those men who live on terms of peculiar intimacy with many women; whether for his own good or not, still for the good of the women concerned. For only by honest purity, and moral courage superior to that of the many, is that dangerous post earned; and women will listen to the man who will tell them the truth, however sternly; and will bow, as before a guardian angel, to the strong insight of him whom they have once learned to trust. But it is a dangerous office, after all, for layman as well as for priest, that of father-confessor. The experience of centuries has shown that they must needs exist, wherever fathers neglect their daughters, husbands their wives; wherever the average of the women cannot respect the average of the men. But the experience of centuries should likewise have taught men, that the said father-confessors are no objects of envy; that their temptations to become spiritual coxcombs (the worst species of all coxcombs), if not intriguers, bullies, and worse, are so extreme, that the soul which is proof against them must be either very great, or very small indeed. Whether Campbell was altogether proof, will be seen hereafter. But one day Elsley found out that such was Campbell's influence, and did not love him the more for the discovery.
They were walking round the garden after dinner; Scoutbush was licking his foolish lips over some commonplace tale of scandal.
"I tell you, my dear fellow, she's booked; and Mellot knows it as well as I. He saw her that night at Lady A's."
"We saw the third act of the comi-tragedy. The fourth is playing out now. We shall see the fifth before the winter."
"Non sine sanguine!" said the Major.
"Serve the wretched stick right, at least," said Scoutbush. "What right had he to marry such a pretty woman?"
"What right had they to marry her up to him?" said Claude. "I don't blame poor January. I suppose none of us, gentlemen, would have refused such a pretty toy, if we could have afforded it as he could."
"Whom do you blame then?" asked Elsley.
"Fathers and mothers who prate hypocritically about keeping their daughters' minds pure; and then abuse a girl's ignorance, in order to sell her to ruin. Let them keep her mind pure, in heaven's name; but let them consider themselves all the more bound in honour to use on her behalf the experience in which she must not share."
"Well," drawled Scoutbush, "I don't complain of her bolting; she's a very sweet creature, and always was: but, as Longreach says,and a very witty fellow he is, though you laugh at him,'If she'd kept to us, I shouldn't have minded: but as Guardsmen, we must throw her over. It's an insult to the whole Guards, my dear fellow, after refusing two of us, to marry an attorney, and after all to bolt with a plunger.'"
What bolting with a plunger might signify, Elsley knew not: but ere he could ask, the Major rejoined, in an abstracted voice
"God help us all! And this is the girl I recollect, two years ago, singing there in Cavendish Square, as innocent as a nestling thrush!"
"Poor child!" said Mellot, "sold at firstperhaps sold again now. The plunger has bills out, and she has ready money. I know her settlements."
"She shan't do it," said the Major quietly: "I'll write to her to-night."
Elsley looked at him keenly. "You think, then, sir, that you can, by simply writing, stop this intrigue?"
The Major did not answer. He was deep in thought.
"I shouldn't wonder if he did," said Scoutbush; "two to one on his baulking the plunger!"
"She is at Lord 's now, at those silly private theatricals. Is he there?"
"No," said Mellot; "he tried hard for an invitationstooped to work me and Sabina. I believe she told him that she would sooner see him in the Morgue than help him; and he is gone to the moors now, I believe."
"There is time then: I will write to her to-night;" and Campbell took up his hat and went home to do it.
"Ah," said Scoutbush, taking his cigar meditatively from his mouth, "I wonder how he does it! It's a gift, I always say, a wonderful gift! Before he has been a week in a house, he'll have the confidence of every woman in it,and 'gad, he does it by saying the rudest things!and the confidence of all the youngsters the week after."
"A somewhat dangerous gift," said Elsley, drily.
"Ah, yes; he might play tricks if he chose: but there's the wonder, that he don't. I'd answer for him with my own sister. I do every day of my lifefor I believe he knows how many pins she puts into her dressand yet there he is. As I said once in the mess-roomthere was a youngster there who took on himself to be witty, and talked about the still sow supping the milkthe snob! You recollect him, Mellot? the attorney's son from Brompton, who sold out;we shaved his mustachios, put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his maAnd he said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: but he'd warrantthey were the fellow's own words,that he took his lark on the sly, like other men the snob! so I told him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am; but if any man dared to say that the Major was not as honest as his own sister, I was his man at fifteen paces. And so I am, Claude!"
All which did not increase Elsley's love to the Major, conscious as he was that Lucia's confidence was a thing which he had not wholly; and which it would be very dangerous to him for any other man to have at all.
Into the drawing-room they went. Frank Headley had been asked up to tea; and he stood at the piano, listening to Valencia's singing.
As they came in, the maid came in also. "Mr. Thurnall wished to speak to Major Campbell."
Campbell went out, and returned in two minutes somewhat hurriedly.
"Mr. Thurnall wishes Lord Scoutbush to be informed at once, and I think it is better that you should all know itthatit is a painful surprise:but there is a man ill in the street, whose symptoms he does not like, he says."
"Cholera?" said Elsley.
"Call him in," said Scoutbush.
"He had rather not come in, he says."
"What! is it infectious?"
"Certainly not, if it be cholera, but"
"He don't wish to frighten people, quite right:" (with a half glance at Elsley;) "but is it cholera, honestly?"
"I fear so."
"Oh, my children!" said poor Mrs. Vavasour.
"Will five pounds help the poor fellow?" said Scoutbush.
"How far off is it?" asked Elsley.
"Unpleasantly near. I was going to advise you to move at once."
"You hear what they are saying?" asked Valencia of Frank.
"Yes, I hear it," said Frank, in a quiet meaning tone.
Valencia thought that he was half pleased with the news. Then she thought him afraid; for he did not stir.
"You will go instantly, of course?"
"Of course I shall. Good-bye! Do not be afraid. It is not infectious."
"Afraid? And a soldier's sister?" said Valencia, with a toss of her beautiful head, by way of giving force to her somewhat weak logic.
Frank left the room instantly, and met Thurnall in the passage.
"Well, Headley, it's here before we sent for it, as bad luck usually is."
"I know. Let me go! Where is it? Whose house?" asked Frank in an excited tone.
"Humph!" said Thurnall, looking intently at him, "that is just what I shall not tell you."
"Not tell me?"
"No, you are too pale, Headley. Go back and get two or three glasses of wine, and then we will talk of it."
"What do you mean? I must go instantly! It is my duty,my parishioner!"
"Look here, Headley! Are you and I to work together in this business, or are we not?"
"Why not, in heaven's name?"
"Then I want you, not for cure, but for prevention. You can do them no good when they have once got it. You may prevent dozens from having it in the next four-and-twenty hours, if you will be guided by me."
"But my business is with their souls, Thurnall."
"Exactly;to give them the consolations of religion, as they call it. You will give them to the people who have not taken it. You may bring them safe through it by simply keeping up their spirits; while if you waste your time on poor dying wretches"
"Thurnall, you must not talk so! I will do all you ask: but my place is at the death-bed, as well as elsewhere. These perishing souls are in my care."
"And how do you know, pray, that they are perishing?" answered Tom, with something very like a sneer. "And if they were, do you honestly believe that any talk of yours can change in five minutes a character which has been forming for years, or prevent a man's going where he ought to go, which, I suppose, is the place to which he deserves to go?"
"I do," said Frank, firmly.
"Well. It is a charitable and hopeful creed. My great dread was, lest you should kill the poor wretches before their time, by adding to the fear of cholera the fear of hell. I caught the Methodist parson at that work an hour ago, took him by the shoulders and shot him out into the street. But, my dear Headley" (and Tom lowered his voice to a whisper), "wherever poor Tom Beer deserved to go to, he is gone to it already. He has been dead this twenty minutes."
"Tom Beer dead? One of the finest fellows in the town! And I never sent for?"
"Don't speak so loud, or they will hear you. I had no time to send for you; and if I had, I should not have sent, for he was past attending to you from the first. He brought it with him, I suppose, from C. Had had warnings for a week, and neglected them. Now listen to me: that man was but two hours ill; as sharp a case as I ever saw, even in the West Indies. You must summon up all your good sense, and play the man for a fortnight; for it's coming on the poor souls like hell!" said Tom between his teeth, and stamped his foot upon the ground. Frank had never seen him show so much feeling; he fancied he could see tears glistening in his eyes.
"I will, so help me God!" said Frank.
Tom held out his hand, and grasped Frank's.
"I know you will. You're all right at heart. Only mind three things: don't frighten them; don't tire yourself; don't go about on an empty stomach; and then we can face the worst like men. And now go in, and say nothing to these people. If they take a panic we shall have some of them down to-night as sure as fate. Go in, keep quiet, persuade them to bolt anywhere on earth by daylight to-morrow. Then go home, eat a good supper, and come across to me; and if I'm out, I'll leave word where."
Frank went back again; he found Campbell, who had had his cue from Tom, urging immediate removal as strongly as he could, without declaring the extent of the danger. Valencia was for sending instantly for a fly to the nearest town, and going to stay at a watering-place some forty miles off. Elsley was willing enough at heart, but hesitated; he knew not, at the moment, poor fellow, where to find the money. His wife knew that she could borrow of Valencia; but she, too, was against the place. The cholera would be in the air for miles round. The journey in the hot sun would make the children sick and ill; and watering-place lodgings were such horrid holes, never ventilated, and full of smellspeople caught fevers at them so often. Valencia was inclined to treat this as "mother's nonsense;" but Major Campbell said gravely, that Mrs. Vavasour was perfectly right as to fact, and her arguments full of sound reason; whereon Valencia said that "of course if Lucia thought it, Major Campbell would prove it; and there was no arguing with such Solons as he"
Which Elsley heard, and ground his teeth. Whereon little Scoutbush cried joyfully,
"I have it; why not go by sea? Take the yacht, and go! Where? Of course I have it again. 'Pon my word I'm growing clever, Valencia, in spite of all your prophecies. Go up the Welsh coast. Nothing so healthy and airy as a sea-voyage: sea as smooth as a mill-pond, too, and likely to be. And then land, if you like, at Port Madoc, as I meant to do; and there are my rooms at Beddgelert lying empty. Engaged them a week ago, thinking I should be there by now; so you may as well keep them aired for me. Come, Valencia, pack up your millinery! Lucia, get the cradles ready, and we'll have them all on board by twelve. Capital plan, Vavasour, isn't if? and, by Jove, what stunning poetry you will write there under Snowdon!"
"But will you not want your rooms yourself, Lord Scoutbush?" said Elsley.
"My dear fellow, never mind me. I shall go across the country, I think, see an old friend, and get some otter-hunting. Don't think of me, till you're there, and then send the yacht back for me. She must be doing something, you know; and the men are only getting drunk every day here. Comeno arguing about it, or I shall turn you all out of doors into the lane, eh?"
And the little fellow laughed so good-naturedly, that Elsley could not help liking him: and feeling that he would be both a fool, and cruel to his family, if he refused so good an offer, he gave in to the scheme, and went out to arrange matters: while Scoutbush went out into the hall with Campbell, and scrambled into his pea-jacket, to go off to the yacht that moment.