Chapter XXVI Preparations for a Journey
Mr. Moses Aarons sat in his private office. His pen hung idle between thumb and finger, and for perhaps the first time within his memory, his thoughts were very far from post-obit and mortgage. For once something more engrossing than money occupied his busy brain, and calculations more abstruse than compound interest furrowed his brow and contracted his eyes into a glittering line.
A night’s reflection, so far from softening the bitterness of his anger against Prue, had intensified it to a pitch that positively shocked him. While he despised himself for the unaccustomed tumult of emotion into which he had been plunged, he was amazed to discover that the desire of possession was vastly augmented by the obstacle which he did not for one moment dream of surmounting. He was too shrewd to indulge in futile hopes, but he was weak enough to crave after revenge.
Only a week ago she had visited him, attempting to obtain a loan on the announcement of her speedy marriage with Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert. Was it possible that only a week had passed since she stood in that very room, indignantly championing one lover and that when she was already married to another? What were women made of, and who could anticipate the caprices of creatures so irresponsible? And yet, who could look into her eyes—those limpid sapphires—and not long to look again? Who could hear the thrilling voice and gushing laughter and not listen ever after for the echo of that divine music? The vision of that lovely face, smiling archly at him over the diamonds he had deemed irresistible, floated before him—sleeping and waking—yet it never occurred to him to claim them back or demand the payment he had refused. More, far more than that was necessary to assuage the fury that raged in his breast.
She had made him suffer, had humbled his pride, befooled him and made him ridiculous in his own eyes. For that she must suffer; her pride must be dragged in the dust, and she who had made sport of hearts and reputations must find her own in the pillory of public derision.
The wife of a highwayman—a malefactor who had been sentenced to die for his crimes, and had narrowly escaped the gallows! Married in Newgate Prison by a drunken Fleet-parson—“Lady Prudence Freemantle!” It was incredible! He laughed at the mere idea, a harsh, croaking laugh more evil than a curse. It would certainly be enough to publish such a mad freak, to cover the perpetrator with undying shame. But many considerations restrained him from taking a prominent part in her exposure. Some one else must be employed, some one whom his money could buy, and yet who would not be suspected of too base a motive.
Goodridge was too mean a tool. The indomitable Lady Prudence Brooke would surely find weapons to defend herself triumphantly from so paltry a foe, even could he be brought to attack her, which was far from certain. Aarons’ thoughts reverted time and again to Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert. A spendthrift at his last gasp for a guinea, no doubt he had a price, though it might be a high one. The money-lender was no miser. Money he worshipped less for itself than for its influence, and one factor in his successful accumulation of vast wealth, was his intuitive knowledge of when to spend and how. But this was probably the first occasion in his life on which he contemplated an outlay, without counting the cost or discounting the return.
How could he buy Sir Geoffrey, and how could he use him? And in the first place, how could he reach him without arousing suspicion as to his own motive?
Aarons threw down his pen, and leaving word that he would be back in about an hour, went on ‘Change, in hopes of diverting his mind by the exciting scenes of “Bubble” speculation, then at its frenzied height. But his mind was out of tune to its ordinary interests, and within the appointed time he returned. At his office door stood a handsome chariot, and with boundless satisfaction, he recognized Sir Geoffrey’s liveries.
Within, impatiently pacing the narrow office, he found the man he was so anxious to see.
During the few minutes he consumed in slowly mounting the stairs, Aarons had resumed complete mastery over himself. He was again the smooth, wily, impenetrable man of affairs, equally prepared to baffle the craft of his clients or profit by their lack of it.
“Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert! This is an unexpected honor,” he said. “I trust I have not kept you waiting long?”
“Time is always long when one is waiting for so dear a friend, Mr. Aarons,” replied Sir Geoffrey, in his jauntiest manner.
“Pray be seated,” said Aarons, indicating the only easy chair, and taking his usual place at the desk. “You are well, I can see for myself. How goes the wooing of the fair viscountess?”
“The wooing speeds gloriously,” said Sir Geoffrey, “but the wheels of Hymen’s chariot do not run fast enough to satisfy an impatient lover. Truth to tell, they need greasing, and that quickly. Women are proverbially fickle and I would fain secure my lady while she is in a yielding mood.”
Aarons with difficulty repressed a sneer. This fatuity at the same time gratified him and excited his contemptuous amusement.
“The Lady Prudence has great temptations,” he said suavely. “I understand that there are several rivals in your honor’s way. With high titles and vast fortunes at her feet, I do not wonder at your eagerness to secure the prize before it is snatched from you. Yet without ready money—” he shook his head regretfully as he met Sir Geoffrey’s clouded eyes.
“You will not believe in the wealth of old Lady Drumloch without positive proof, I suppose?” the baronet hinted, “yet I give you my word of honor that my information is from a source impossible to discredit. And furthermore, I shall receive five thousand guineas on the day I marry Lady Prudence—entirely independent of the fortune she will inherit from her grandmother.”
“Is it possible?” exclaimed Aarons. “Five thousand guineas on her wedding-day! I was not aware of this change in her fortunes, and yet,” an idea struck him suddenly, “to tell you the truth—this is in sacred confidence between us, Sir Geoffrey—yesterday I returned her ladyship’s necklace which I have held as security for moneys advanced a long time ago, and I have reason to know that, although she tried to borrow from me last week, she now has money to redeem her diamonds, and tossed hundred-pound notes about like curl-papers!”
Sir Geoffrey’s eyes sparkled. “What did I tell you?” he exclaimed. “Who but Lady Drumloch can have redeemed her diamonds (I saw them on her fair neck last night) and paid her debts? The old lady has done it before, and can do it again. Come, Aarons, open your heart and your purse-strings, and let me have a few hundreds on my note-of-hand, if you will not increase the mortgage. I’ll pay you out of the five thousand guineas—that’s a positive certainty—the day I marry Lady Prue.”
“And suppose—I am bound to be cautious—suppose, by any chance, you should not, after all, marry the viscountess?”
“I will marry her, if I have to carry her off by force!” cried Sir Geoffrey, suddenly savage. “She shall not jilt me, by Heaven! or if she does, no other man shall care to take her afterward!”
Secretly delighted at this outburst of ferocity, Aarons assumed a deprecatory air, and with uplifted hands, entreated his visitor to be calm.
“We all know,” he said insinuatingly, “how dearly the ladies love to think that they have been won in spite of themselves. The most tricksey of coquettes may turn out the meekest and most devoted of wives to the man who has the courage to prove himself master. At least, so I have heard, but of course I should not presume to advise so experienced a lady-killer as Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert.”
“Well, Aarons, if you will furnish the sinews of war, I will undertake to carry the citadel by storm. A few hundreds for a week or less, and if I fail you may clap me in the Fleet, an’ you will, and put everything I possess under the hammer.”
Aarons still, for the sake of form, protested, but allowed himself to be coaxed and reasoned into a compliant mood, and finally accepted Sir Geoffrey’s note for a substantial sum, on the tacit understanding that, by fair means or foul, the Lady Prudence Brooke was to be made Lady Beaudesert without loss of time.
Leaving the money-lender to gloat over the unexpectedly efficient tool he had found for his vengeance, and to wonder whether Prue would confess her reckless marriage and take the consequences, or defy Sir Geoffrey and drive him to extremities, the latter made his way westward with all speed. Although the hour was still early for social calls, he presented himself at Lady Drumloch’s and learning that Prue was somewhat indisposed and had not yet risen, left a message that he would return later, and having still some hours to spare before his parliamentary duties claimed his brief and perfunctory attendance, repaired to the Cocoa-Tree.
With a pocketful of crisp bank-notes, the card-table irresistibly attracted him, and finding, as he expected, a little coterie of congenial spirits, he passed a pleasant and profitable hour or two with the luck steadily on his side. Then, flushed with victory and in something of a boastful humor, he ran almost into the arms of Lord Beachcombe, on his way out.
“Your pardon, my Lord!” he cried, retreating a step, and bowing low; “’tis a pity you were not here sooner. Nat Bedloe and Lord Eustace have been throwing dice, and the ace came up sixteen times running! ‘Gad I never saw such a thing before.”
“I never throw dice—can’t see any sport in it,” drawled Beachcombe; “but that must have been worth seeing. Have you been playing? With your usual good luck, no doubt?”
Sir Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders. “I must make the most of my few remaining days of bachelor freedom,” he said. “I intend to settle down when I am married, and become a model man of family. But I am still a gay bachelor, and very much at your service at the club or elsewhere.”
“You forget that I am already married—and a father, no less!” Beachcombe replied, in his friendliest manner. “Still, I have not entirely given up worldly pleasures. I still book a little wager from time to time, and as my lady has a passion for Ombre, she can not grumble if I still take a hand at écarté or whist. Is your wedding-day fixed? No doubt the marriage of so charming and popular a lady as the Viscountess Brooke will be a brilliant function. All the court will wish to do her honor; perhaps even her Gracious Majesty intends to be present?”
“I fear that the state of her grandmother’s health will prevent Lady Prue’s indulging her natural desire to shine on this occasion. As the old lady’s heiress, of course she can not risk offending her; even at the last minute wills may be changed and fortunes lost for a trifle.”
“Ha! is the venerable countess so wealthy as to make her will a matter of importance? Yet she passes for poor, and when I was—when I had the privilege of standing in your present enviable relations to Lady Prue, she assured me—yet these old women are often miserly—no doubt she will give the world a surprise when her hoards are unearthed. I congratulate you upon your prospects! A bride so incomparable and a great fortune to boot! You are indeed the favored of the gods! With such a prize in your grasp, you will scarcely think it worth while to remember our little wager.”
“Five thousand guineas will come in very handy to start housekeeping!” cried Sir Geoffrey gaily. His laugh was echoed with a boisterous merriment that startled him like an explosion. Lord Beachcombe was so little given to mirth, his laughter was so noiseless and so rarely responsive to another man’s hilarity, that the jovial shouts and gleeful contortions with which he received Sir Geoffrey’s retort would have disturbed less susceptible nerves than his.
The sinister sounds rang in his ears all the afternoon as he sat through a dreary debate which did not interest the few members present sufficiently to interrupt the general conversation. What was Lord Beachcombe laughing at? he asked himself a hundred times, with ever-increasing irritation. He was not a man to take the loss of a large sum of money cheerfully. Yet it was impossible for him to have any suspicion of a serious impediment to the marriage. Still, Sir Geoffrey decided that delay was perilous and a secret known to five persons has fifty loop-holes to escape through, so for a vast number of reasons Prue must be induced, by fair means, if possible—but somehow, anyhow—to marry him immediately.
To reassure himself, Sir Geoffrey carefully read the record of the wager and satisfied himself that it merely required him to marry Lady Prudence Brooke within one month of a certain date. There was no stipulation of what kind of marriage it should be, and even should it be contested later. Lord Beachcombe could not repudiate a wager that had been settled, even if the method of winning it were open to criticism. He heartily cursed Robin for failing to be hanged according to reliable calculations, and was even inclined to blame Prue for lack of foresight, but he pooh-poohed the possibility of danger in ignoring the Newgate wedding and the idea of Robin as a serious rival brought a contemptuous sneer to his lips.
At the first opportunity he slipped away and hurried back to Mayfair, where he found Prue and Peggie in a state of pleasurable excitement, and the anteroom thronged with milliners and mercers as in the early times of Lady Prue’s lively widowhood.
Surrounded by obsequious tradesmen, anxious to atone for their late importunities by reckless offers of unlimited credit to the reinstated favorite, Prue was in her element. Over her graceful shoulders a chattering, little Frenchwoman draped a filmy scarf, while gloves and ribbons, sacks and “heads,” silken hose and rainbow stuffs were spread before her on every side and half-a-dozen voices, raised in laudation of these and other wares too numerous to mention, filled the air with confusion.
Barbara Sweeting, as high-priestess of fashion, criticized, selected, condemned and approved, while Lady Drumloch, installed on her favorite sofa, half-buried in her choicest cashmeres, voiced an occasional opinion in her crisp, decisive way, to which Prue gave more than usual heed.
“A fair day to you, ladies!” cried Sir Geoffrey. “‘I faith, I feel like a stag-beetle among the butterflies.” He bent over Prue as though examining a trinket in her hand. “Are you choosing the nuptial garments, dearest?” he whispered. “May I have a voice in the selection?”
“What do you think of this?” she replied, indicating a skirt ruffled to the waist and surmounted by full paniers of brocade stiff with silver embroidery. “’Tis the latest from France and vastly becoming to a slender shape. I shall be glad of advice as I have but little time for selection. The queen’s physicians have hurried her off to Tunbridge and she is even now on the road. The royal command to attend her there without loss of time reached me but an hour ago, and to-morrow I must follow post-haste, so I am just gathering a few necessaries. Barbara, would you decide on that blue train or do you think the pink stripe will go better with the silver-gray?”
“What are you going to do with that lace flounce?” interposed Peggie. “You ought to trim the silver brocade with it; it is too lovely for a petticoat.”
“Lady Drumloch’s lace!” cried Barbara, pouncing on it with cries of ecstasy. “I protest ’tis the finest I ever beheld! You should keep it for your wedding-dress, Prue.”
Prue glanced at her grandmother, and the slight smile that passed between them caused Sir Geoffrey an uneasy thrill, though he could not have explained why.
“I wish Prue to look her best,” said the old lady. “It is a great opportunity for her to be in waiting upon the queen at this particular time. Her Majesty is to be kept very quiet on account of her gout and few people will have access to her; Prue may be fortunate enough to become indispensable, and the queen can be very indulgent to those who win her favor.”
“And after Tunbridge there will be a summer at Windsor, I hope,” said Prue, “and mayhap a few weeks at Bath—and who can tell what may happen before next winter?”
Barbara, nothing loath, chimed in with various suggestions, by no means calculated to soothe Sir Geoffrey’s temper, which by this time was almost out of control. This was what a man might expect who built his hopes on a shallow coquette without a thought above frills and furbelows, and entirely devoid of a proper sense of duty to her future lord! He felt that to subdue her tricksy spirit was a sacred duty, and that any means would be justified with such a laudable aim in view.
“Do you actually leave for the Wells to-morrow?” he inquired. “Is it possible for such elaborate preparations to be so quickly achieved?”
“Why, I must do the best I can,” she replied regretfully. “This silver brocade can be fitted to me in a couple of hours. Mrs. Buckram has all her women at work upon a couple of morning frocks and a traveling dress, and with those I must be content. There will be no court at any rate for a few days and I am not journeying into a desert. London is not inaccessible, nor is there a better milliner here than little Madame Prim on Tunbridge High Street. Yes, my post-chaise is ordered for to-morrow morning, and I shall start at nine o’clock if I have to go barefoot and bareheaded.”
“Might I be permitted to offer you the use of my chariot? Posting is far from agreeable or safe in a hired rattletrap.”
She gave him an arch glance. “A thousand thanks!” she laughed, “but I am growing wise in my old age, and I fear that there would be a rare wagging of tongues should I be known to travel in Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert’s coach.”
“I regret deeply that no service I can offer is acceptable to you, my dear Lady Prudence,” said Sir Geoffrey, with grave dignity. “Yet I pray you to remember that should you find yourself in any unpleasant predicament, there is a sword at your service and a hand not unaccustomed to use it—for that purpose.”
Her eyes fell and he was gratified to observe a passing embarrassment in her manner. Taking the propitious moment for his departure, he rose, and while bending over her hand, murmured, “Have you forgotten that you promised me a favorable answer in a week?”
“If I mistake not I said that ‘on my return,’ I would hope to be ready with my answer. You see for yourself that my return is uncertain; but when it takes place I promise not to keep you in suspense. Do not forget that in the meantime you are free to—”
“Free to blow my brains out, if you drive me to despair,” he interrupted, in a low, tense tone. “But not until I have exhausted every other means of bringing you to reason, dear Lady Prue. Tunbridge is not at the other end of the world, and as you may see me sooner than you expect, I will not say farewell, but—Until our next happy meeting!”
Something in his manner restrained the petulant rejoinder that rose to her lips, and she allowed him to kiss her hand in silence. He lingered a few minutes beside Lady Drumloch, inquiring after her health and condoling with her approaching loss of Prue’s delightful company, and then, with a few passing compliments to Peggie and a brief skirmish with Barbara, he bowed himself out with consummate aplomb.
“Dear Gossip,” said Barbara, when he was out of hearing, “be on your guard; there goes one who will not wear his willow submissively.”
“He must wear it as he pleases,” she replied, “or not at all if he prefer. I protest I’ll not contradict him, if it suits him to say he jilted me.”
“Is his successor chosen?” queried Barbara archly. “Do I know him?—is he—”
“There is no successor,” Prue interrupted hastily; “no more lovers for me. I am sick of courting and compliments, sick to death of ‘hearts at my feet’ and ‘swords at my service,’ and tongues more false than the one and sharper than the other ready and waiting to stab me in the back; or, worse still, in the reputation!”