Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.. Lever Charles James
wrong him in thinking him a dangerous fellow?” asked Cave. But Fossbrooke made no answer; indeed, he never heard the question, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts.
“What do you know of him?” asked Cave, in a louder voice.
“Everything, – everything! I know all that he has done, and scores of things he would have done if he could. By what ill-luck was it that Trafiford came to know this man?”
“They met at the Cape, and Trafford went to visit him when they came over to Ireland. I suspect – I do not know it – but I suspect that there was some flirtation in the case. She is extremely pretty, and a coquette.”
“I declare,” said Fossbrooke, as he arose and paced the room, totally unattentive to all the other said, – “I declare I begin sometimes to think that the only real activity in life is on the part of the scoundrels. Half the honest people in the world pass their lives in forming good intentions, while the rogues go straight at their work and do it. Do you think, Cave, that Trafford would tell me frankly what has passed between this man and himself?”
“I ‘m not sure. I mean, he might have some reserve on one point, and that is the very point on which his candor would be most important. There have been letters, it would seem, that Sewell has got hold of, and threatens exposure, if some enormous demand be not complied with.”
“What! Is the scoundrel so devoid of devices that he has to go back on an old exploded villany? Why, he played that game at Rangoon, and got five thousand pounds out of poor Beresford.”
“I have heard something of that.”
“Have heard of it! Who that ever served in India is not familiar with the story? What does Trafford mean by not coming up here, and telling me the whole story?”
“I ‘ll tell you what he means, Fossbrooke: he is heartily ashamed of himself; he is in love with another, and he knows that you know it; but he believes you may have heard stories to his detriment, and, tied as he is, or fancies he is, by a certain delicate reserve, he cannot go into his exculpation. There, in one word, is the reason that he is not here to-night; he asked me to put on him special duty, and save him from all the awkwardness of meeting you with a half-confidence.”
“And I, meanwhile, have written off to Tom Lendrick to come over here with his sister, or to let us go and pay them a visit at the island.”
“You never told me of this.”
“Why should I? I was using the rights I possess over you as my guests, doing for you what I deemed best for your amusement.”
“What answer have they given you?”
“None up to this; indeed, there has been scarcely time; and now, from what you tell me, I do not well know what answer I’d like to have from them.”
For several minutes neither uttered a word; at last Fossbrooke said: “Trafford was right not to meet me. It has saved him some prevarication, and me some passion. Write and tell him I said so.”
“I can scarcely do that, without avowing that I have revealed to you more than I am willing to own.”
“When you told me in whose hands he was, you told me more than all the rest. Few men can live in Dudley Sewells intimacy and come unscathed out of the companionship.”
“That would tell ill for myself, for I have been of late on terms of much intimacy with him.”
“You have n’t played with him?”
“Ay, but I have; and, what’s more, won of him,” said Cave, laughing.
“You profited little by that turn of fortune,” said Foss-brooke, sarcastically.
“You imply that he did not pay his debt; but you are wrong: he came to me the morning after we had played, and acquitted the sum lost.”
“Why, I am entangling myself in the miracles I hear! That Sewell should lose is strange enough: that he should pay his losses is simply incredible.”
“Your opinion of him would seem to be a very indifferent one.”
“Far from it, Cave. It is without any qualification whatever. I deem him the worst fellow I ever knew; nor am I aware of any greater misfortune to a young fellow entering on life than to have become his associate.”
“You astonish me! I was prepared to hear things of him that one could not justify, nor would have willingly done themselves, but not to learn that he was beyond the pale of honor.”
“It is exactly where he stands, sir, – beyond the pale of honor. I wish we had not spoken of him,” said the old man, rising, and pacing the room. “The memory of that fellow is the bitterest draught I ever put to my lips; he has dashed my mind with more unworthy doubts and mean suspicions of other men than all my experience of life has ever taught me. I declare, I believe if I had never known him my heart would have been as hopeful to-day as it was fifty years ago.”
“How came it that I never heard you speak of him?”
“Is it my wont, Cave, to talk of my disasters to my friends? You surely have known me long enough to say whether I dwell upon the reverses and disappointments of my life. It is a sorry choice of topics, perhaps, that is left to men old as myself when they must either be croakers or boasters. At all events, I have chosen the latter; and people bear with it the better because they can smile at it.”
“I wish with all my heart I had never played with Sewell, and still more that I had not won of him.”
“Was it a heavy sum?”
“For a man like myself, a very heavy sum. I was led on – giving him his revenge, as it is called – till I found myself playing for a stake which, had I lost, would have cost me the selling my commission.”
Fossbrooke nodded, as though to say he had known of such, incidents in the course of his life.
“When he appeared at my quarters the next morning to settle the debt, I was so overcome with shame that I pledge you my word of honor, I believe I ‘d rather have been the loser and taken all the ruin the loss would have brought down upon me.”
“How your friend must have appreciated your difficulty!” said Fossbrooke, sarcastically.
“He was frank enough, at all events, to own that he could not share my sense of embarrassment. He jeered a little at my pretension to be an example to my young officers, as well he might. I had selected an unlucky moment to advance such a claim; and then he handed me over my innings, with all the ease and indifference in life.”
“I declare, Cave, I was expecting, to the very last moment, a different ending to your story. I waited to hear that he had handed you a bond of his wife’s guardian, which for prudential reasons should not be pressed for prompt payment.”
“Good heavens! what do you mean?” cried Cave, leaning over the table in intense eagerness. “Who could have told you this?”
“Beresford told me; he brought me the very document once to my house with my own signature annexed to it, – an admirable forgery as ever was, done. My seal, too, was there. By bad luck, however, the paper was stolen from me that very night, – taken out of a locked portfolio. And when Beresford charged the fellow with the fraud, Sewell called him out and shot him.”
Cave sat for several minutes like one stunned and overcome. He looked vacantly before him, but gave no sign of hearing or marking what was said to him. At last he arose, and, walking over to a table, unlocked his writing-desk, and took out a large packet, of which he broke the seal, and without examining the contents, handed it to Fossbrooke, saying, – “Is that like it?”
“It is the very bond itself; there’s my signature. I wish I wrote as good a hand now,” said he, laughing. “It is as I always said, Cave,” cried he, in a louder, fuller voice; “the world persists in calling this swindler a clever fellow, and there never was a greater mistake. The devices of the scoundrel are the very fewest imaginable; and he repeats his three or four tricks, with scarcely a change, throughout a life long.”
“And this is a forgery!”