Майн Рид
The Child Wife
“Enough?” said Maynard, apparently satisfied that Steiner was his man. “Now, Monsieur Karl, I merely want you to call me a cab.”
“Which sort, votre seigneurie?” asked the ex-groom, giving the true stable salute. “Hansom or four-wheeler?”
“Hansom,” replied Maynard, pleased with the man’s sharpness.
“Très bien.”
“And hear me, Monsieur Karl; I want you to select one with a horse that can go. You understand me?”
“Parfaitement.”
“When you’ve brought it to the gate, come inside here; and don’t wait to see me into it.”
With another touch to his cap, Karl went off on his errand.
“Now, Governor?” said Maynard, “I must ask you to look up that horsewhip and quarter-yard of crape.”
Kossuth appeared in a quandary.
“I hope, captain,” he said, “you don’t intend any – ”
“Excuse me, your Excellency,” said Maynard, interrupting him. “I don’t intend anything that may compromise you. I have my own feelings to satisfy in this matter – my own wrongs I might call them; more than that – those of my country.”
The patriotic speech went home to the Hungarian patriot’s heart. He made no farther attempt at appeasing the irate adventurer; but stepping hastily out of the room, soon returned, carrying the crape and horsewhip – the latter a true hound-scorer with buckhorn handle.
The gritting of wheels on the gravel told that the cab had drawn up before the gate.
“Good-night, Governor!” said Maynard, taking the things from Kossuth’s hand. “If the Times of to-morrow tells you of a gentleman having been soundly horsewhipped, don’t say it was I who did it.”
And with this singular caution, Maynard made his adieus to the ex-Dictator of Hungary!
Chapter Sixty Six.
Two Cabs
In London dark nights are the rule, not the exception. More especially in the month of November; when the fog rolls up from the muddy Thames, spreading its plague-like pall over the metropolis.
On just such a night a cab might have been seen issuing from the embouchure of South Bank, passing down Park Road, and turning abruptly into the Park, through the “Hanover Gate.”
So dense was the fog, it could only have been seen by one who chanced to be near it; and very near to know that it was a hansom.
The bull’s-eye burning overhead in front reflected inside just sufficient light to show that it carried only a single “fare,” of the masculine gender.
A more penetrating light would have made apparent a gentleman – so far as dress was concerned – sitting with something held in his hand that resembled a hunting-whip.
But the brightest light would not have sufficed for the scanning of his face – concealed as it was behind a covering of crape.
Before the cab carrying him had got clear of the intricacies of South Bank, a low whistle was heard both by him and his driver.
He seemed to have been listening for it; and was not surprised to see another cab – a hansom like his own – standing on the corner of Park Road as he passed out – its Jehu, with reins in hand, just settling himself upon his seat, as if preparing to start. Any one, who could have looked upon his face at the moment, could have told he had been expecting it.
Nor was he astonished, on passing through Hanover Gate, to perceive that the second cab was coming after him.
If you enter the Regent’s Park by this gate, take the left hand turning, and proceed for about a quarter of a mile, you will reach a spot secluded as any within the limits of London. It is where the canal, traversing along the borders of the Park, but inside its palings, runs between deep embankments, on both sides densely wooded. So solitary is this place, that a stranger to the locality could not believe himself to be within the boundaries of the British metropolis.
On the night in question neither the Park hag, nor its constable, were encountered along the drive. The damp, dense fog rendered it uncomfortable for both.
All the more favourable for him carried in the leading cab, whose design required darkness.
“Jarvey?” said he, addressing himself to his driver, through the little trap-door overhead. “You see that hansom behind us?”
“Can’t see, but I hear it, sir.”
“Well; there’s a gentleman inside it I intend horsewhipping.”
“All right, sir. Tell me when you want to stop.”
“I want to stop about three hundred yards this side of the Zoological Gardens. There’s a copse that comes close to the road. Pull up alongside of it; and stay there till I return to you.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the driver, who, having received a sovereign in advance, was dead-bent on obedience. “Anything else I can do for your honour?”
“All I want of you is, if you hear any interference on the part of his driver, you might leave your horse for a little – just to see fair play.”
“Trust me, your honour! Don’t trouble yourself about that. I’ll take care of him?”
If there be any chivalry in a London cabman, it is to be found in the driver of a hansom – especially after having received a sovereign with the prospect of earning another. This was well-known to his “fare” with the craped face.
On reaching the described copse the leading cab was pulled up – its passenger leaping instantly out, and gliding in under the trees.
Almost at the same instant, its pursuer came to a stand – somewhat to the surprise of him who sate inside it.
“They’ve stopped, sir,” said the driver, whispering down through the trap.
“I see that, damn them! What can it be for?”
“To give you a horsewhipping!” cried a man with a masked face, springing up on the footboard, and clutching the inquirer by the collar.
A piteous cry from Mr Swinton – for it was he – did not hinder him from being dragged out of his hansom, and receiving a chastisement he would remember to his dying day!
His driver, leaping from the box, made show to interfere. But he was met by another driver equally eager, and somewhat stronger; who, seizing him by the throat, did not let go his hold of him till he had fairly earned the additional sovereign!
A policeman who chanced to overhear the piteous cries of Swinton, came straddling up to the spot; but only after the scuffle had ended, and the wheels of a swift cab departing through the thick fog told him he was too late to take the aggressor into custody!
The spy proceeded no farther.
After being disembarrassed of the policeman, he was but too happy to be driven back to the villa in South Bank.
Chapter Sixty Seven.
Disinterested Sympathy
On arriving at his own residence, Swinton’s servants scarcely recognised him. It was as much as his own wife could do. There were several dark weals traced diagonally across his cheeks, with a purple shading around his left “peeper”; for in punishing the spy, Maynard had made use not only of an implement of the hunting-field, but one more peculiar to the “ring.”
With a skin full of sore bones, and many ugly abrasions, Swinton tottered indoors, to receive the sympathies of his beloved Fan.
She was not alone in bestowing them. Sir Robert Cottrell had dropped in during his absence; and the friendly baronet appeared as much pained as if the sufferer had been his brother.
He had less difficulty in counterfeiting sorrow. His chagrin at the quick return supplied him with an inspiration.
“What is it, my dear Swinton? For heaven’s sake tell us what has happened to you?”
“You see, Sir Robert,” answered the maltreated man.
“I see that you’ve suffered some damage. But who did it?”
“Footpads in the Park. I was driving around it to get to the east side. You know that horrid place this side of the Zoo Gardens?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Sir Robert.
“Well; I’d got round there, when all at once the cab was stopped by half a score of scoundrels, and I was instantly pulled out into the road. While half of them took hold of the driver, the other half proceeded to search my pockets. Of course I resisted; and you see what’s come of it. They’d have killed me but for a policeman who chanced to come up, after I’d done my best, and was about getting the worst of it. They then ran off, leaving me in this precious condition – damn them!”
“Damn them!” said Sir Robert, repeating the anathema with pretended indignation. “Do you think there’s no chance of your being able to identify them?”
“Not the slightest. The fog was so thick you could have cut it with a knife; and they ran off, before the policeman could get hold of any one of them. In his long cumbersome coat it would have been simple nonsense to follow. He said so; and of course I could only climb back into my cab and drive home here. It’s lucky I had a cab; for, damme, if I believe I could have walked it?”
“By Jove! you do appear damaged!” said the sympathising baronet. “Don’t you think you had better go to bed?”
Sir Robert had a design in the suggestion.
“Oh, no,” rejoined Swinton, who, despite the confusion of his ideas, perfectly understood it. “I’m not so bad as that. I’ll take a lie-down on this sofa; and you, Fan, order me some brandy and water! You’ll join me, Sir Robert I’m still able to smoke a cigar with you.”
“You’d better have an oyster to your eye?” said the baronet, drawing out his glass and scrutinising the empurpled peeper. “It will keep down that ‘mouse’ that seems to be creeping out underneath it. ’Twill help to take out the colour.”
“A devilish good idea! Fan, send one of the servants for an oyster. Stay; while they’re about it they may as well bring a couple of dozen. Could you eat some, Sir Robert?”
Sir Robert thought he could. He did not much care for them, but it would be an excuse to procrastinate his stay. Perhaps something might turn up to secure him a tête-à-tête with Mrs Swinton. He had just commenced one that was promising to be agreeable, when so unexpectedly interrupted.
“We may as well make a supper of it?” suggested Swinton, who, having already taken a gulp of the brandy and water, was feeling himself again.
“Let the servant order three dozen, my dear. That will be a dozen for each of us.”
“No, it won’t,” jokingly rejoined the baronet. “With three dozen, some of us will have to be contented with eleven.”
“How so, Sir Robert?”
“You forget the oyster that is to go to your eye. And now I look more carefully at that adolescent mouse, I think it will require at least a couple of the bivalves to give it a proper covering.”
Swinton laughed at the baronet’s ready wit. How could he help it?
“Well, let them be baker’s dozen,” he said. “That will cover everything.” Three baker’s dozen were ordered and brought Fan saw to them being stewed in the kitchen, and placed with appropriate “trimmings” on the table; while the biggest of them, spread upon a white rag, was laid against her husband’s eye, and there snugly bandaged.
It blinded that one eye. Stingy as he was, Sir Robert would have given a sovereign had it shut the sight out of both!
But it did not; and the three sate down to supper, his host keeping the sound eye upon him.
And so carefully was it kept upon him, that the baronet felt bored with the situation, and wished himself back at his club.
He thought of making some excuse to escape from it; and then of staying, and trying to make the best of it. An idea occurred to him.
“This brute sometimes gets drunk,” was his mental soliloquy, as he looked across the table at his host with the Cyclopean eye. “If I can make him so, there might be a chance of getting a word with her. I wonder whether it can be done? It can’t cost much to try. Half a dozen of champagne ought to do it.”
“I say, Swinton!” he said aloud, addressing his host in a friendly, familiar manner. “I never eat stewed oysters without champagne. Have you got any in the house? Excuse me for asking the question! It’s a positive impertinence.”
“Nothing of the sort, Sir Robert. I’m only sorry to say there’s not a single bottle of champagne in my cellar. We’ve been here such a short while, and I’ve not had time to stock it. But no matter for that I can send out, and get – ”
“No!” said the baronet, interrupting him. “I shan’t permit that; unless you allow me to pay for it.”
“Sir Robert!”
“Don’t be offended, my dear fellow. That isn’t what I mean. The reason why I’ve made the offer is because I know you can’t get real champagne in this neighbourhood – not nearer than Winckworth’s. Now, it so happens, that they are my wine merchants. Let me send to them. It isn’t very far. Your servant, in a hansom cab, can fetch the stuff, and be back in fifteen minutes. But to get the right stuff he must order it for me.”
Sir Robert’s host was not the man to stand upon punctilios. Good champagne was not so easily procured – especially in the neighbourhood of Saint John’s Wood. He knew it; and, surrendering his scruples, he rang the bell for the servant, permitting Sir Robert to write out the order. It was carte blanche, both for the cab and champagne.
In less than twenty minutes the messenger returned, bringing back with him a basket of choice “Cliquot.”
In five minutes more a bottle was uncorked; and the three sat quaffing it, Swinton, his wife, and the stingy nobleman who stood treat – not stingy now, over that which promised him a pleasure.
Chapter Sixty Eight.
An Irksome Imprisonment
Succeeding his castigation, it was all of a week before Mr Swinton could make appearance upon the streets – during daylight.
The discoloration of his cheeks, caused by the horsewhip, was slow of coming out; and even the oyster kept on for twenty-four hours failed to eliminate the purple crescent under his eye.
He had to stay indoors – sneaking out only at night.
The pain was slight. But the chagrin was intolerable; and he would have given a good sum out of his spy pay to have had revenge upon the man who had so chastised him.
This was impossible; and for several reasons, among others, his ignorance of whom it was. He only knew that his chastiser had been a guest of Kossuth; and this from his having come out of Kossuth’s house. He had not himself seen the visitor as he went in; and his subordinate, who shared with him the duplicate duty of watching and dogging, did not know him. He was a stranger who had not been there before – at least since the establishment of the picket.
From the description given of his person, as also what Swinton had himself seen of it through the thick fog – something, too, from what he had felt – he had formed, in his own mind, a suspicion as to whom the individual was. He could not help thinking of Maynard. It may seem strange he should have thought of him. But no; for the truth is, that Maynard was rarely out of his mind. The affair at Newport was a thing not easily forgotten. And there was the other affair in Paris, where Julia Girdwood had shown an interest in the Zouaves’ captive that did not escape observation from her jealous escort.
He had been made aware of her brief absence from the Louvre Hotel, and conjectured its object. Notwithstanding the apparent slight she had put upon his rival in the Newport ball-room, he suspected her of a secret inclining to him – unknown to her mother.
It made Swinton savage to think of it; the more from a remembrance of another and older rivalry, in which the same man had outstripped him.
To be beaten in a love intrigue, backed out in a duel, and finally flogged with a horsewhip, are three distinct humiliations any one of which is enough to make a man savage.
And Swinton was so, to the point of ferocity.
That Maynard had done to him the two first, he knew – about the last he was not so certain. But he conjectured it was he who had handled the horsewhip. This, despite the obscurity caused by the fog, and the crape masking the face of his chastiser.
The voice that had accosted him did not sound like Maynard’s, but it also may have been masked.
During the time he was detained indoors, he passed a portion of it in thinking of revenge, and studying how he was to obtain it.
Had his patron seen him, as he sat almost continually behind the Venetian, with his eyes upon Kossuth’s gate, he would have given him credit for an assiduous attention to his duties.
But he was not so honest as he seemed. Many visitors entered the opposite house – some of them strange-looking characters, whose very stride spoke of revolution – entered and took departure, without being dogged.
The spy, brooding over his own private resentment had no thoughts to spare for the service of the State. Among the visitors of Kossuth he was desirous of identifying Captain Maynard.
He had no definite idea as to what he would do to him; least of all that of giving him into custody. The publicity of the police court would have been fatal to him – as damaging to his employer and patron. It might cause exposure of the existence of that spy system, hitherto unsuspected in England. The man, who had got out of the hansom to horsewhip him, must have known that he was being followed, and wherefore. It would never do for the British public to know it Swinton had no intention of letting them know; nor yet Lord – , and his employer. To the latter, calling occasionally of evenings, he told the same story as that imparted to Sir Robert Cottrell – only with the addition that, the footpads had set upon him while in the exercise of his avocation as a servant of the State!
The generous nobleman was shocked at his mishap; sympathised with him, but thought it better to say nothing about it; hinted at an increase of pay; and advised him, since he could not show himself during daylight on the streets, to take the air after night – else his health might suffer by a too close confinement.
The protégé accepted this advice; several times going out of an evening, and betaking himself to a Saint John’s Wood tavern, where “euchre” was played in the parlour. He had now a stake, and could enjoy the game.
Twice, returning home at a late hour, he found the patron in his own parlour, quietly conversing with his wife. His lordship had simply called up to inquire after his health; and having also some instructions to communicate, had been impatiently awaiting his return.
The patron did not say impatiently. He would not have been so impolite. It was an interpolation proceeding from the lips of “Fan.”
And Swinton saw all this; and much more. He saw new bracelets glistening upon his wife’s wrist, diamond drops dangling from her ears, and a costly ring sparkling upon her finger – not there before!
He saw them, without inquiring whence they had come. He cared not; or if he did, it was not with any distaste at their secret bestowal. Sir Robert Cottrell saw them, with more displeasure than he.
Chapter Sixty Nine.
The Cabriolet
There was but one thing for which Richard Swinton really now cared. He liked “euchre”; he would have relished revenge; but there was a thought to which both these enjoyments had become subservient.
It was a passion rather than thought – its object, Julia Girdwood.
He had grown to love her.
Such a man might be supposed incapable of having this passion. And in its purity, he was so.
But there is love in more ways than one; and in one of them the ex-guardsman’s heart had got engaged; in other words, he had got “struck.”
It was love in its lowest sense; but not on this account weakest.
In Swinton it had become strong enough to render him regardless of almost everything else. Even the villainous scheme, originally contrived for robbing Julia Girdwood of her fortune, had become secondary to a desire to possess himself of her person.
The former was not lost sight of; only that the latter had risen into the ascendant.
On this account, more than any other, did he curse his irksome indoor life.
It occurred just after that pleasant dinner-party, when he supposed himself to have made an impression. It hindered him from following it up. Six days had elapsed, and he had seen nothing of the Girdwoods. He had been unable to call upon them. How could he with such a face, even by explaining the damage done to it? Either way the thing was not to be thought of; and he had to leave them uncalled upon.
He fretted meanwhile, longing to look once more upon Julia Girdwood. Cards could not cure him of it, and what he saw, or suspected, in the conduct of his own wife, made him lean all the more to his longings; since the more did he stand in need of distraction.
He had other thoughts to distress him – fancies they might be. So long without seeing her, what in the meantime was transpiring? A beautiful woman, with wealth, she could not be going on unnoticed? Sure to be beset with admirers; some of them to become worshippers? There was Lucas, one of the last already; but Swinton did not deign to think of him. Others might make appearance; and among them one who would answer the conditions required by her mother before permitting her to marry.
How could he tell but that a real lord had already trumped up on the tapis; and was at that moment kneeling upon one of the Clarendon carpets, by the selvedge of her silken skirt?
Or if not a lord, might not Maynard be there, unknown to the mother?
Swinton had this last fancy; and it was the least pleasant of all.
It was in his mind every day, as he sat by the window, waiting till the skin of his face should be restored to its natural colour.
And when this at length came to pass, he lost not another day, but proceeded to call upon the Girdwoods.
He went in tip-top style. His spy pay, drawn from such a generous patron, afforded it. No swell upon the streets was dressed in better fashion; for he wore a Poole coat, Melnotte boots, and a hat of Christy’s make.
He did not walk, as on his first call at the Clarendon.
He was transported thither in a cabriolet, with a high-stepping horse between the shafts, and a top-boot tiger on the stand-board.
Mrs Girdwood’s apartments in the aristocratic hotel commanded a window fronting upon Bond Street. He knew that his turn-out would be seen.
All these steps had been taken, with a view to carrying on the cheat.
And the cabriolet had been chosen for a special purpose. It was the style of vehicle in vogue among distinguished swells – notably young noblemen. They were not often seen upon the streets; and when seen attracting attention, as they should – being the handsomest thing upon heels.
During one of her moments of enthusiasm, he had heard Julia Girdwood say she should like to have a ride in one of them. He was just the man to drive her: for while a guardsman he had often handled the ribbons of a drag; and was esteemed one of the best “whips” of his time.
If he could only coax Julia Girdwood into his cabriolet – of course also her mother to permit it – what an advantage it would give, him! An exhibition of his skill; the opportunity of a tête-à-tête unrestrained – a chance he had not yet had; these, with other contingencies, might tend to advance him in her estimation.
It was a delicate proposal to make. It would have been a daring one, but for the speech he had heard suggesting it. On the strength of this he could introduce the subject, without fear of offending.
She might go. He knew she was a young lady fond of peculiar experiences, and not afraid of social criticism. She had never submitted to its tyranny. In this she was truly American.
He believed she would go, or consent to it; and it would be simply a question of permission from the mother.
And after their last friendly interview, he believed that Mrs Girdwood would give it.
Backed by such belief there could be no harm in trying; and for this the cabriolet had been chartered.
Buoyant of hope, Mr Swinton sprang out of the vehicle, tossed the reins to his tiger, and stepped over the threshold of the Clarendon.
