CHAPTER IV.
"A slippery and subtle knave; a finder out of occasions, that
has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages."--/Othello/.
"Knavery's plain face is never seen till used."-/-Ibid./
"You see, my dear Lumley," said Lord Saxingham, as the next day the two
kinsmen were on their way to London in the earl's chariot, "you see that
at the best this marriage of Flory's is a cursed bore."
"Why, indeed, it has its disadvantages. Maltravers is a gentleman and a
man of genius; but gentlemen are plentiful, and his genius only tells
against us, since he is not even of our politics."
"Exactly--my own son-in-law voting against me!"
"A practicable, reasonable man would change; not so Maltravers--and all
the estates, and all the parliamentary influence, and all the wealth
that ought to go with the family and with the party, go out of the
family and against the party. You are quite right, my dear lord--it is
a cursed bore."
"And she might have had the Duke of ------, a man with a rental of
L100,000 a year. It is too ridiculous. This Maltravers, d----d
disagreeable fellow, too, eh?"
"Stiff and stately--much changed for the worse of late years--grown
conceited and set up."
"Do you know, Lumley, I would rather, of the two, have had you for my
son-in-law?"
Lumley half started. "Are you serious, my lord? I have not Ernest's
fortune--I cannot make such settlements: my lineage, too, at least on my
mother's side, is less ancient."
"Oh, as to settlements, Flory's fortune ought to be settled on
herself,--and as compared with that fortune, what could Mr. Maltravers
pretend to settle? Neither she nor any children she may have could want
his L4,000 a year, if he settled it all. As for family, connections
tell more nowadays than Norman descent,--and for the rest, you are
likely to be old Templeton's heir, to have a peerage (a large sum of
ready money is always useful)--are rising in the House--one of our own
set--will soon be in office--and, flattery apart, a devilish good fellow
into the bargain. Oh, I would sooner a thousand times that Flory had
taken a fancy to you."
Lumley Ferrers bowed his head but said nothing. He fell into a reverie,
and Lord Saxingham took up his official red box, became deep in its
contents, and forgot all about the marriage of his daughter.
Lumley pulled the check-string as the carriage entered Pall Mall, and
desired to be set down at "The Travellers." While Lord Saxingham was
borne on to settle the affairs of the nation, not being able to settle
those of his own household, Ferrers was inquiring the address of
Castruccio Cesarini. The porter was unable to give it him. The Signor
generally called every day for his notes, but no one at the club knew
where he lodged. Ferrers wrote, and left with the porter a line
requesting Cesarini to call on him as soon as possible, and he bent his
way to his house in Great George Street. He went straight into his
library, unlocked his escritoire, and took out that letter which, the
reader will remember, Maltravers had written to Cesarini, and which
Lumley had secured; carefully did he twice read over this effusion, and
the second time his face brightened and his eyes sparkled. It is now
time to lay this letter before the reader: it ran thus:--
/"Private and confidential."/
"MY DEAR CESARINI:
"The assurance of your friendly feelings is most welcome to me. In much
of what you say of marriage, I am inclined, though with reluctance, to
agree. As to Lady Florence herself, few persons are more calculated to
dazzle, perhaps to fascinate. But is she a person to make a home
happy--to sympathise where she has been accustomed to command--to
comprehend, and to yield to the waywardness and irritability common to
our fanciful and morbid race--to content herself with the homage of a
single heart? I do not know her enough to decide the question; but I
know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for your happiness,
if centred in a nature so imperious and so vain. But you will remind me
of her fortune, her station. You will say that such are the sources
from which, to an ambitious mind, happiness may well be drawn! Alas! I
fear that the man who marries Lady Florence must indeed confine his
dreams of felicity to those harsh and disappointing realities. But,
Cesarini, these are not words which, were we more intimate, I would
address to you. I doubt the reality of those affections which you
ascribe to her and suppose devoted to yourself. She is evidently fond
of conquest. She sports with the victims she makes. Her vanity dupes
others, perhaps to be duped itself at last. I will not say more to you.
"Yours,
E. MALTRAVERS."
"Hurrah!" cried Ferrers, as he threw down the letter, and rubbed his
hands with delight. "I little thought, when I schemed for this letter,
that chance would make it so inestimably serviceable. There is less to
alter than I thought for--the clumsiest botcher in the world could
manage it. Let me look again. Hem, hem--the first phrase to alter is
this: 'I know her enough to feel deep solicitude and anxiety for /your/
happiness if centred in a nature so imperious and vain'--scratch out
'your,' and put 'my.' All the rest good, good--till we come to
'affections which you ascribe to her, and suppose devoted to
/yourself/'--for '/yourself/' write '/myself/'--the rest will do. Now,
then, the date--we must change it to the present month, and the work is
done. I wish that Italian blockhead would come. If I can but once make
an irreparable breach between her and Maltravers, I think I cannot fail
of securing his place; her pique, her resentment, will hurry her into
taking the first who offers, by way of revenge. And by Jupiter, even if
I fail (which I am sure I shall not), it will be something to keep Flory
as lady paramount for a duke of our own party. I shall gain immensely
by such a connection; but I lose everything and gain nothing by her
marrying Maltravers--of opposite politics too--whom I begin to hate like
poison. But no duke shall have her--Florence Ferrers, the only
alliteration I ever liked--yet it would sound rough in poetry."
Lumley then deliberately drew towards him his inkstand--"No
penknife!--Ah, true, I never mend pens--sad waste--must send out for
one." He rang the bell, ordered a penknife to be purchased, and the
servant was still out when a knock at the door was heard, and in a
minute more Cesarini entered.
"Ah," said Lumley, assuming a melancholy air, "I am glad that you are
arrived; you will excuse my having written to you so unceremoniously.
You received my note--sit down, pray--and how are you? you look
delicate--can I offer you anything?"
"Wine," said Cesarini, laconically, "wine; your climate requires wine."
Here the servant entered with the penknife, and was ordered to bring
wine and sandwiches. Lumley then conversed lightly on different matters
till the wine appeared; he was rather surprised to observe Cesarini pour
out and drink off glass upon glass, with an evident craving for the
excitement. When he had satisfied himself, he turned his dark eyes to
Ferrers, and said, "You have news to communicate--I see it in your brow.
I am now ready to hear all."
"Well, then listen to me; you were right in your suspicions; jealousy is
ever a true diviner. I make no doubt Othello was quite right, and
Desdemona was no better than she should be. Maltravers has proposed to
my cousin; and been accepted."
Cesarini's complexion grew perfectly ghastly; his whole frame shook like
a leaf--for a moment he seemed paralysed.
"Curse him!" said he, at last, drawing a deep breath, and betwixt his
grinded teeth--"curse him, from the depths of the heart he has broken!"
"And after such a letter to you!--do you remember it?--here it is. He
warns you against Lady Florence, and then secures her to himself--is
this treachery?"
"Treachery black as hell! I am an Italian," cried Cesarini, springing
to his feet, and with all the passions of his climate in his face, "and
I will be avenged! Bankrupt in fortune, ruined in hopes, blasted in
heart--I have still the godlike consolation of the desperate--I have
revenge."
"Will you call him out?" asked Lumley, musingly and calmly. "Are you a
dead shot? If so, it is worth thinking about; if not, it is a
mockery--your shot misses, his goes in the air, seconds interpose, and
you both walk away devilish glad to get off so well. Duels are humbug."
"Mr. Ferrers," said Cesarini, fiercely, "this is not a matter of jest."
"I do not make it a jest; and what is more, Cesarini," said Ferrers,
with a concentrated energy far more commanding than the Italian's fury,
"what is more, I so detest Maltravers, I am so stung by his cold
superiority, so wroth with his success, so loathe the thought of his
alliance, that I would cut off this hand to frustrate that marriage! I
do not jest, man; but I have method and sense in my hatred--it is our
English way."
Cesarini stared at the speaker gloomily, clenched his hand, and strode
rapidly to and fro the room.
"You would be avenged, so would I. Now what shall be the means?" said
Ferrers.
"I will stab him to the heart--I will--"
"Cease these tragic flights. Nay, frown and stamp not; but sit down,
and be reasonable, or leave me and act for yourself."
"Sir," said Cesarini, with an eye that might have alarmed a man less
resolute than Ferrers, "have a care how you presume on my distress."
"You are in distress, and you refuse relief; you are bankrupt in
fortune, and you rave like a poet, when you should be devising and
plotting for the attainment of boundless wealth. Revenge and ambition
may both be yours; but they are prizes never won but by a cautious foot
as well as a bold hand."
"What would you have me do? and what but his life would content me?"
"Take his life if you can--I have no objection--go and take it; only
just observe this, that if you miss your aim, or he, being the stronger
man, strike you down, you will be locked up in a madhouse for the next
year or two at least; and that is not the place in which I should like
to pass the winter--but as you will."
"You!--you!--But what are you to me? I will go. Good day, sir."
"Stay a moment," said Ferrers, when he saw Cesarini about to leave the
room; "stay, take this chair, and listen to me--you had better--"
Cesarini hesitated, and then, as it were, mechanically obeyed.
"Read that letter which Maltravers wrote to you. You have
finished--well--now observe--if Florence sees that letter she will not
and cannot marry the man who wrote it--you must show it to her."
"Ah, my guardian angel, I see it all! Yes, there are words in this
letter no woman so proud could ever pardon. Give me it again, I will go
at once."
"Pshaw! You are too quick; you have not remarked that this letter was
written five months ago, before Maltravers knew much of Lady Florence.
He himself has confessed to her that he did not then love her--so much
the more would she value the conquest she has now achieved. Florence
would smile at this letter, and say, 'Ah, he judges me differently
now.'"
"Are you seeking to madden me? What do you mean? Did you not just now
say that, did she see that letter, she would never marry the writer?"
"Yes, yes, but the letter must be altered. We must erase the date;--we
must date it from to-day;--to-day--Maltravers returns to-day. We must
suppose it written, not in answer to a letter from you, demanding his
advice and opinion as to your marriage with Lady Florence, but in answer
to a letter of yours in which you congratulate him on his approaching
marriage to her. By the substitution of one pronoun for another, in two
places, the letter will read as well one way as another. Read it again,
and see; or stop, I will be the lecturer."
Here Ferrers read over the letter, which, by the trifling substitutions
he proposed, might indeed bear the character he wished to give it.
"Does the light break in upon you now?" said Ferrers. Are you prepared
to go through a part that requires subtlety, delicacy, address, and,
above all, self-control?--qualities that are the common attributes of
your countrymen."
"I will do all, fear me not. It may be villainous, it may be base; but
I care not, Maltravers shall not rival, master, eclipse me in all
things."
"Where are you lodging?"
"Where?--out of town a little way."
"Take up your home with me for a few days. I cannot trust you out of my
sight. Send for your luggage; I have a room at your service."
Cesarini at first refused; but a man who resolves on a crime feels the
awe of solitude, and the necessity of a companion. He went himself to
bring his effects, and promised to return to dinner.
"I must own," said Lumley, resettling himself at his desk, "this is the
dirtiest trick that ever I played; but the glorious end sanctifies the
paltry means. After all, it is the mere prejudice of gentlemanlike
education."
A very few seconds, and with the aid of the knife to erase, and the pen
to re-write, Ferrers completed his task, with the exception of the
change of date, which, on second thoughts, he reserved as a matter to be
regulated by circumstances.
"I think I have hit off his /m/'s and /y/'s tolerably," said he,
"considering I was not brought up to this sort of thing. But the
alteration would be visible on close inspection. Cesarini must read the
letter to her, then if she glances over it herself it will be with
bewildered eyes and a dizzy brain. Above all, he must not leave it with
her, and must bind her to the closest secresy. She is honourable and
will keep her word; and so now that matter is settled. I have just time
before dinner to canter down to my uncle's and wish the old fellow joy."
