CHAPTER XX--AFTER THE STORM
No sooner was the house clear of my cousin than I began to reckon
up, ruefully enough, the probable results of what had passed. Here
were a number of pots broken, and it looked to me as if I should
have to pay for all! Here had been this proud, mad beast goaded
and baited both publicly and privately, till he could neither hear
nor see nor reason; whereupon the gate had been set open, and he
had been left free to go and contrive whatever vengeance he might
find possible. I could not help thinking it was a pity that,
whenever I myself was inclined to be upon my good behaviour, some
friends of mine should always determine to play a piece of heroics
and cast me for the hero--or the victim--which is very much the
same. The first duty of heroics is to be of your own choosing.
When they are not that, they are nothing. And I assure you, as I
walked back to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour:
thought my uncle and Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with
my life and prospects; cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more
urgent than to avoid the pair of them; and was quite knocked out of
time, as they say in the ring, to find myself confronted with the
lawyer.
He stood on my hearthrug, leaning on the chimney-piece, with a
gloomy, thoughtful brow, as I was pleased to see, and not in the
least as though he were vain of the late proceedings.
'Well?' said I. 'You have done it now!'
'Is he gone?' he asked.
'He is gone,' said I. 'We shall have the devil to pay with him
when he comes back.'
'You are right,' said the lawyer, 'and very little to pay him with
but flams and fabrications, like to-night's.'
'To-night's?' I repeated.
'Ay, to-night's!' said he.
'To-night's WHAT?' I cried.
'To-night's flams and fabrications.'
'God be good to me, sir,' said I, 'have I something more to admire
in your conduct than ever _I_ had suspected? You cannot think how
you interest me! That it was severe, I knew; I had already
chuckled over that. But that it should be false also! In what
sense, dear sir?'
I believe I was extremely offensive as I put the question, but the
lawyer paid no heed.
'False in all senses of the word,' he replied seriously. 'False in
the sense that they were not true, and false in the sense that they
were not real; false in the sense that I boasted, and in the sense
that I lied. How can I arrest him? Your uncle burned the papers!
I told you so--but doubtless you have forgotten--the day I first
saw you in Edinburgh Castle. It was an act of generosity; I have
seen many of these acts, and always regretted--always regretted!
"That shall be his inheritance," he said, as the papers burned; he
did not mean that it should have proved so rich a one. How rich,
time will tell.'
'I beg your pardon a hundred thousand times, my dear sir, but it
strikes me you have the impudence--in the circumstances, I may call
it the indecency--to appear cast down?'
'It is true,' said he: 'I am. I am cast down. I am literally
cast down. I feel myself quite helpless against your cousin.'
'Now, really!' I asked. 'Is this serious? And is it perhaps the
reason why you have gorged the poor devil with every species of
insult? and why you took such surprising pains to supply me with
what I had so little need of--another enemy? That you were
helpless against them? "Here is my last missile," say you; "my
ammunition is quite exhausted: just wait till I get the last in--
it will irritate, it cannot hurt him. There--you see!--he is
furious now, and I am quite helpless. One more prod, another kick:
now he is a mere lunatic! Stand behind me; I am quite helpless!"
Mr. Romaine, I am asking myself as to the background or motive of
this singular jest, and whether the name of it should not be called
treachery?'
'I can scarce wonder,' said he. 'In truth it has been a singular
business, and we are very fortunate to be out of it so well. Yet
it was not treachery: no, no, Mr. Anne, it was not treachery; and
if you will do me the favour to listen to me for the inside of a
minute, I shall demonstrate the same to you beyond cavil.' He
seemed to wake up to his ordinary briskness. 'You see the point?'
he began. 'He had not yet read the newspaper, but who could tell
when he might? He might have had that damned journal in his
pocket, and how should we know? We were--I may say, we are--at the
mercy of the merest twopenny accident.'
'Why, true,' said I: 'I had not thought of that.'
'I warrant you,' cried Romaine, 'you had supposed it was nothing to
be the hero of an interesting notice in the journals! You had
supposed, as like as not, it was a form of secrecy! But not so in
the least. A part of England is already buzzing with the name of
Champdivers; a day or two more and the mail will have carried it
everywhere: so wonderful a machine is this of ours for
disseminating intelligence! Think of it! When my father was born-
-but that is another story. To return: we had here the elements
of such a combustion as I dread to think of--your cousin and the
journal. Let him but glance an eye upon that column of print, and
where were we? It is easy to ask; not so easy to answer, my young
friend. And let me tell you, this sheet is the Viscount's usual
reading. It is my conviction he had it in his pocket.'
'I beg your pardon, sir,' said I. 'I have been unjust. I did not
appreciate my danger.'
'I think you never do,' said he.
'But yet surely that public scene--' I began.
'It was madness. I quite agree with you,' Mr. Romaine interrupted.
'But it was your uncle's orders, Mr. Anne, and what could I do?
Tell him you were the murderer of Goguelat? I think not.'
'No, sure!' said I. 'That would but have been to make the trouble
thicker. We were certainly in a very ill posture.'
'You do not yet appreciate how grave it was,' he replied. 'It was
necessary for you that your cousin should go, and go at once. You
yourself had to leave to-night under cover of darkness, and how
could you have done that with the Viscount in the next room? He
must go, then; he must leave without delay. And that was the
difficulty.'
'Pardon me, Mr. Romaine, but could not my uncle have bidden him
go?' I asked.
'Why, I see I must tell you that this is not so simple as it
sounds,' he replied. 'You say this is your uncle's house, and so
it is. But to all effects and purposes it is your cousin's also.
He has rooms here; has had them coming on for thirty years now, and
they are filled with a prodigious accumulation of trash--stays, I
dare say, and powder-puffs, and such effeminate idiocy--to which
none could dispute his title, even suppose any one wanted to. We
had a perfect right to bid him go, and he had a perfect right to
reply, "Yes, I will go, but not without my stays and cravats. I
must first get together the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine chestsfull
of insufferable rubbish, that I have spent the last thirty years
collecting--and may very well spend the next thirty hours a-packing
of." And what should we have said to that?'
'By way of repartee?' I asked. 'Two tall footmen and a pair of
crabtree cudgels, I suggest.'
'The Lord deliver me from the wisdom of laymen!' cried Romaine.
'Put myself in the wrong at the beginning of a lawsuit? No,
indeed! There was but one thing to do, and I did it, and burned my
last cartridge in the doing of it. I stunned him. And it gave us
three hours, by which we should make haste to profit; for if there
is one thing sure, it is that he will be up to time again to-morrow
in the morning.'
'Well,' said I, 'I own myself an idiot. Well do they say, an old
soldier, an old innocent! For I guessed nothing of all this.'
'And, guessing it, have you the same objections to leave England?'
he inquired.
'The same,' said I.
'It is indispensable,' he objected.
'And it cannot be,' I replied. 'Reason has nothing to say in the
matter; and I must not let you squander any of yours. It will be
enough to tell you this is an affair of the heart.'
'Is it even so?' quoth Romaine, nodding his head. 'And I might
have been sure of it. Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail
in yellow overalls, do what you will, young Jessamy finds young
Jenny. O, have it your own way; I am too old a hand to argue with
young gentlemen who choose to fancy themselves in love; I have too
much experience, thank you. Only, be sure that you appreciate what
you risk: the prison, the dock, the gallows, and the halter--
terribly vulgar circumstances, my young friend; grim, sordid,
earnest; no poetry in that!'
'And there I am warned,' I returned gaily. 'No man could be warned
more finely or with a greater eloquence. And I am of the same
opinion still. Until I have again seen that lady, nothing shall
induce me to quit Great Britain. I have besides--'
And here I came to a full stop. It was upon my tongue to have told
him the story of the drovers, but at the first word of it my voice
died in my throat. There might be a limit to the lawyer's
toleration, I reflected. I had not been so long in Britain
altogether; for the most part of that time I had been by the heels
in limbo in Edinburgh Castle; and already I had confessed to
killing one man with a pair of scissors; and now I was to go on and
plead guilty to having settled another with a holly stick! A wave
of discretion went over me as cold and as deep as the sea.
'In short, sir, this is a matter of feeling,' I concluded, 'and
nothing will prevent my going to Edinburgh.'
If I had fired a pistol in his ear he could not have been more
startled.
'To Edinburgh?' he repeated. 'Edinburgh? where the very paving-
stones know you!'
'Then is the murder out!' said I. 'But, Mr. Romaine, is there not
sometimes safety in boldness? Is it not a common-place of strategy
to get where the enemy least expects you? And where would he
expect me less?'
'Faith, there is something in that, too!' cried the lawyer. 'Ay,
certainly, a great deal in that. All the witnesses drowned but
one, and he safe in prison; you yourself changed beyond
recognition--let us hope--and walking the streets of the very town
you have illustrated by your--well, your eccentricity! It is not
badly combined, indeed!'
'You approve it, then?' said I.
'O, approve!' said he; 'there is no question of approval. There is
only one course which I could approve, and that were to escape to
France instanter.'
'You do not wholly disapprove, at least?' I substituted.
'Not wholly; and it would not matter if I did,' he replied. 'Go
your own way; you are beyond argument. And I am not sure that you
will run more danger by that course than by any other. Give the
servants time to get to bed and fall asleep, then take a country
cross-road and walk, as the rhyme has it, like blazes all night.
In the morning take a chaise or take the mail at pleasure, and
continue your journey with all the decorum and reserve of which you
shall be found capable.'
'I am taking the picture in,' I said. 'Give me time. 'Tis the
tout ensemble I must see: the whole as opposed to the details.'
'Mountebank!' he murmured.
'Yes, I have it now; and I see myself with a servant, and that
servant is Rowley,' said I.
'So as to have one more link with your uncle?' suggested the
lawyer. 'Very judicious!'
'And, pardon me, but that is what it is,' I exclaimed. 'Judicious
is the word. I am not making a deception fit to last for thirty
years; I do not found a palace in the living granite for the night.
This is a shelter tent--a flying picture--seen, admired, and gone
again in the wink of an eye. What is wanted, in short, is a
trompe-l'oeil that shall be good enough for twelve hours at an inn:
is it not so?'
'It is, and the objection holds. Rowley is but another danger,'
said Romaine.
'Rowley,' said I, 'will pass as a servant from a distance--as a
creature seen poised on the dicky of a bowling chaise. He will
pass at hand as a smart, civil fellow one meets in the inn
corridor, and looks back at, and asks, and is told, "Gentleman's
servant in Number 4." He will pass, in fact, all round, except
with his personal friends! My dear sir, pray what do you expect?
Of course if we meet my cousin, or if we meet anybody who took part
in the judicious exhibition of this evening, we are lost; and who's
denying it? To every disguise, however good and safe, there is
always the weak point; you must always take (let us say--and to
take a simile from your own waistcoat pocket) a snuff box-full of
risk. You'll get it just as small with Rowley as with anybody
else. And the long and short of it is, the lad's honest, he likes
me, I trust him; he is my servant, or nobody.'
'He might not accept,' said Romaine.
'I bet you a thousand pounds he does!' cried I. 'But no matter;
all you have to do is to send him out to-night on this cross-
country business, and leave the thing to me. I tell you, he will
be my servant, and I tell you, he will do well.'
I had crossed the room, and was already overhauling my wardrobe as
I spoke.
'Well,' concluded the lawyer, with a shrug, 'one risk with another:
a la guerre comme a la guerre, as you would say. Let the brat come
and be useful, at least.' And he was about to ring the bell, when
his eye was caught by my researches in the wardrobe. 'Do not fall
in love with these coats, waistcoats, cravats, and other panoply
and accoutrements by which you are now surrounded. You must not
run the post as a dandy. It is not the fashion, even.'
'You are pleased to be facetious, sir,' said I; 'and not according
to knowledge. These clothes are my life, they are my disguise; and
since I can take but few of them, I were a fool indeed if I
selected hastily! Will you understand, once and for all, what I am
seeking? To be invisible, is the first point; the second, to be
invisible in a post-chaise and with a servant. Can you not
perceive the delicacy of the quest? Nothing must be too coarse,
nothing too fine; rien de voyant, rien qui detonne; so that I may
leave everywhere the inconspicuous image of a handsome young man of
a good fortune travelling in proper style, whom the landlord will
forget in twelve hours--and the chambermaid perhaps remember, God
bless her! with a sigh. This is the very fine art of dress.'
'I have practised it with success for fifty years,' said Romaine,
with a chuckle. 'A black suit and a clean shirt is my infallible
recipe.'
'You surprise me; I did not think you would be shallow!' said I,
lingering between two coats. 'Pray, Mr. Romaine, have I your head?
or did you travel post and with a smartish servant?'
'Neither, I admit,' said he.
'Which change the whole problem,' I continued. 'I have to dress
for a smartish servant and a Russia leather despatch-box.' That
brought me to a stand. I came over and looked at the box with a
moment's hesitation. 'Yes,' I resumed. 'Yes, and for the
despatch-box! It looks moneyed and landed; it means I have a
lawyer. It is an invaluable property. But I could have wished it
to hold less money. The responsibility is crushing. Should I not
do more wisely to take five hundred pounds, and intrust the
remainder with you, Mr. Romaine?'
'If you are sure you will not want it,' answered Romaine.
'I am far from sure of that,' cried I. 'In the first place, as a
philosopher. This is the first time I have been at the head of a
large sum, and it is conceivable--who knows himself?--that I may
make it fly. In the second place, as a fugitive. Who knows what I
may need? The whole of it may be inadequate. But I can always
write for more.'
'You do not understand,' he replied. 'I break off all
communication with you here and now. You must give me a power of
attorney ere you start to-night, and then be done with me
trenchantly until better days.'
I believe I offered some objection.
'Think a little for once of me!' said Romaine. 'I must not have
seen you before to-night. To-night we are to have had our only
interview, and you are to have given me the power; and to-night I
am to have lost sight of you again--I know not whither, you were
upon business, it was none of my affairs to question you! And
this, you are to remark, in the interests of your own safety much
more than mine.'
'I am not even to write to you?' I said, a little bewildered.
'I believe I am cutting the last strand that connects you with
common sense,' he replied. 'But that is the plain English of it.
You are not even to write; and if you did, I would not answer.'
'A letter, however--' I began.
'Listen to me,' interrupted Romaine. 'So soon as your cousin reads
the paragraph, what will he do? Put the police upon looking into
my correspondence! So soon as you write to me, in short, you write
to Bow Street; and if you will take my advice, you will date that
letter from France.'
'The devil!' said I, for I began suddenly to see that this might
put me out of the way of my business.
'What is it now?' says he.
'There will be more to be done, then, before we can part,' I
answered.
'I give you the whole night,' said he. 'So long as you are off ere
daybreak, I am content.'
'In short, Mr. Romaine,' said I, 'I have had so much benefit of
your advice and services that I am loth to sever the connection,
and would even ask a substitute. I would be obliged for a letter
of introduction to one of your own cloth in Edinburgh--an old man
for choice, very experienced, very respectable, and very secret.
Could you favour me with such a letter?'
'Why, no,' said he. 'Certainly not. I will do no such thing,
indeed.'
'It would be a great favour, sir,' I pleaded.
'It would be an unpardonable blunder,' he replied. 'What? Give
you a letter of introduction? and when the police come, I suppose,
I must forget the circumstance? No, indeed. Talk of it no more.'
'You seem to be always in the right,' said I. 'The letter would be
out of the question, I quite see that. But the lawyer's name might
very well have dropped from you in the way of conversation; having
heard him mentioned, I might profit by the circumstance to
introduce myself; and in this way my business would be the better
done, and you not in the least compromised.'
'What is this business?' said Romaine.
'I have not said that I had any,' I replied. 'It might arise.
This is only a possibility that I must keep in view.'
'Well,' said he, with a gesture of the hands, 'I mention Mr.
Robbie; and let that be an end of it!--Or wait!' he added, 'I have
it. Here is something that will serve you for an introduction, and
cannot compromise me.' And he wrote his name and the Edinburgh
lawyer's address on a piece of card and tossed it to me.
