The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James
Lecoq, of the Rue St. Honoré.
“As I was dealing with a man of honor and high character, I had no scruple in leaving the volume of old Giacomo’s memoirs in Lecoq’s hands; and after about a week I returned to learn what he thought of it. He was frank enough to say that no such diary had ever come before him – that it cleared up a vast number of points hitherto doubtful and obscure, and showed an amount of knowledge of the private life of the period absolutely marvellous; ‘but,’ said he, ‘it would never do to make it public. Most of these men are now forgotten, it is true, but their descendants remain, and live in honor amongst us. What a terrible scandal it would be to proclaim to the world that of these people many were illegitimate, many in the enjoyment of large fortunes to which they had not a shadow of a title; in fact,’ said he, ‘it would be to hurl a live shell in the very midst of society, leaving the havoc and destruction it might cause to blind chance. But,’ added he, ‘it strikes me there is a more profitable use the volume might be put to. Have you read the narrative of your grandmother’s marriage in Ireland with that rich Englishman?’ I owned I had read it carelessly, and without bestowing much interest on the theme. ‘Go back and reread it,’ said he, ‘and come and talk it over with me to-morrow evening.’ As I entered his room the next night he arose ceremoniously from his chair, and said, in a tone of well-assumed obsequiousness, ‘Si je ne me trompe pas, j’ai l’honneur de voir Monsieur Bramleigh, n’est-ce pas?’ I laughed, and replied, ‘Je ne m’y oppose pas, monsieur;’ and we at once launched out into the details of the story, of which each of us had formed precisely the same opinion.
“Ill luck would have it, that as I went back to my lodgings on that night I should meet Bertani, and Varese, and Manini, and be persuaded to go and sup with them. They were all suspected by the police, from their connection with Fieschi; and on the morning after I received an order from the Minister of War to join my regiment at Oran, and an intimation that my character being fully known it behooved me to take care. I gave no grounds for more stringent measures towards me. I understood the ‘caution,’ and, not wishing to compromise Monsieur Lecoq, who had been so friendly in all his relations with me, I left France, without even an opportunity of getting back my precious volume, which I never saw again till I revisited Paris eight years after, having given in my démission from the service. Lecoq obtained for me that small appointment I held under Monsieur Lesseps in Egypt, and which I had given up a few weeks before I met you on the Nile. I ought to tell you that Lecoq, for what reason I can’t tell, was not so fully pursuaded that my claim was as direct as he had at first thought it; and indeed his advice to me was rather to address myself seriously to some means of livelihood, or to try and make some compromise with the Bramleighs, with whom he deemed a mere penniless pretender would not have the smallest chance of success. I hesitated a good deal over his counsel. There was much in it that weighed with me, perhaps convinced me: but I was always more or less of a gambler, and more than once have I risked a stake, which, if I lost, would have left me penniless; and at last I resolved to say, Va Banque, here goes; all or nothing. There’s my story, mon cher, without any digressions, even one of which, if I had permitted myself to be led into it, would have proved twice as long.”
“The strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link, the engineers tell us,” said Longworth, “and it is the same with evidence. I ‘d like to hear what Kelson says of the case.”
“That I can scarcely give you. His last letter to me is full of questions which I cannot answer; but you shall read it for yourself. Will you send upstairs for my writing-desk?”
“We ‘ll con that over to-morrow after breakfast, when our heads will be clearer and brighter. Have you old Lami’s journal with you?”
“No. All my papers are with Kelson. The only thing I have here is a sketch in colored chalk of my grandmother, in her eighteenth year, as a Flora, and, from the date, it must have been done in Ireland, when Giacomo was working at the frescos.”
“That my father,” said Pracontal, after a pause, “counted with certainty on this succession, all his own papers show, as well as the care he bestowed on my early education, and the importance he attached to my knowing and speaking English perfectly. But my father cared far more for a conspiracy than a fortune. He was one of those men who only seem to live when they are confronted by a great danger, and I believe there has not been a great plot in Europe these last five-and-thirty years without his name being in it. He was twice handed over to the French authorities by the English Government, and there is some reason to believe that the Bramleighs were the secret instigators of the extradition. There was no easier way of getting rid of his claims.”
“These are disabilities which do not attach to you.”
“No, thank Heaven. I have gone no farther with these men than mere acquaintance. I know them all, and they know me well enough to know that I deem it the greatest disaster of my life that my father was one of them. It is not too much to say that a small part of the energy he bestowed on schemes of peril and ruin would have sufficed to have vindicated his claim to wealth and fortune.”
“You told me, I think, that Kelson hinted at the possibility of some compromise, – something which, sparing them the penalty of publicity, would still secure to you an ample fortune.”
“Yes. What he said was, ‘Juries are, with all their honesty of intention, capricious things to trust to;’ and that, not being rich enough to suffer repeated defeats, an adverse verdict might be fatal to me. I did n’t like the reasoning altogether, but I was so completely in his hands that I forbore to make any objection, and so the matter remained.”
“I suspect he was right,” said Longworth, thoughtfully. “At the same time, the case must be strong enough to promise victory, to sustain the proposal of a compromise.”
“And if I can show the game in my hand why should I not claim the stakes?”
“Because the other party may delay the settlement. They may challenge the cards, accuse you of ‘a rook,’ put out the lights – anything, in short, that shall break up the game.”
“I see,” said Pracontal, gravely; “the lawyer’s notion may be better than I thought it.”
A long silence ensued between them; then Longworth, looking at his watch, exclaimed, “Who’d believe it? It wants only a few minutes to two o’clock. Good-night.”
CHAPTER X. THE DROPPINGS OF A GREAT DIPLOMATIST
When a man’s manner and address are very successful with the world, – when he possesses that power of captivation which extends to people of totally different tastes and habits, and is equally at home, equally at his ease, with young and old, with men of grave pursuits and men of pleasure, – it is somewhat hard to believe that there must not be some strong sterling quality in his nature; for we know that the base metals never bear gilding, and that it is only a waste of gold to cover them with it.
It would be, therefore, very pleasant to think that if people should not be altogether as admirable as they were agreeable, yet that the qualities which made the companionship so delightful should be indications of deeper and more solid gifts beneath. Yet I am afraid the theory will not hold. I suspect that there are a considerable number of people in this world who go through life trading on credit, and who renew their bills with humanity so gracefully and so cleverly, they are never found out to be bankrupts till they die.
A very accomplished specimen of this order was Lord Culduff. He was a man of very ordinary abilities, commonplace in every way, and who had yet contrived to impress the world with the notion of his capacity. He did a little of almost everything. He sang a little, played a little on two or three instruments, talked a little of several languages, and had smatterings of all games and field-sports, so that, to every seeming, nothing came amiss to him. Nature had been gracious to him personally, and he had a voice very soft and low and insinuating.
He was not an impostor, for the simple reason that he believed in himself. He actually had negotiated his false coinage so long, that he got to regard it as bullion, and imagined himself to be one of the first men of his age.
The bad bank-note, which has been circulating freely from hand to hand, no sooner comes under the scrutiny of a sharp-eyed functionary