"But, good God!" said William, "how have you found this out? I have never told it even to my own sweetheart."
"Because," said Lord Hainault, laying his hand on his shoulder, "I and John Marston have exactly the same fancy. That is why."
And Charles so close to them all the time. Creeping every day across the park to see the coachman and his son. Every day getting more hopeless.
All energy gone. Wit enough left to see that he was living on the charity of the cornet. There were some splinters in his arm which would not come away, and kept him restless. He never slept now. He hesitated when he was spoken to. Any sudden noise made him start and look wild. I will not go on with the symptoms. Things were much worse with him than we have ever seen them before. He, poor lad, began to wonder whether it would come to him to die in a hospital or----
Those cursed bridges! Why did they build such things? Who built them?
The devil. To tempt ruined, desperate men, with ten thousand fiends gnawing and sawing in their deltoid muscles, night and day. Suppose he had to cross one of these by night, would he ever get to the other side?
Or would angels from heaven come down and hold him back?
The cornet and his mother had a conversation about him. Bawled the cornet into the ear-trumpet:
"My fellow Simpson is very bad, mother. He is getting low and nervous, and I don't like the looks of him."
"I remarked it myself," said the lady. "We had better have Bright. It would be cheaper to pay five guineas, and get a good opinion at once."
"I expect he wants a surgeon more than a doctor," said the cornet.
"Well, that is the doctor's business," said the old lady. "Drop a line to Bright, and see what he says. It would be a burning shame, my dear--enough to bring down the wrath of God upon us--if we were to let him want for anything, as long as we have money. And we have plenty of money. More than we want. And if it annoys him to go near the horses, we must pension him. But I would rather let him believe that he was earning his wages, because it might be a weight on his mind if he did not. See to it the first thing in the morning. Remember Balaclava, James!
Remember Balaclava! If you forget Balaclava, and what trooper Simpson did for you there, you are tempting God to forget you."
"I hope He may when I do, mother," shouted the cornet. "I remember Balaclava--ay, and Devna before."
There are such people as these in the world, reader. I know some of them. I know a great many of them. So many of them, in fact, that this conclusion has been forced upon me--that the world is _not_ entirely peopled by rogues and fools; nay, more, that the rogues and fools form a contemptible minority. I may become unpopular, I may be sneered at by men who think themselves wiser for coming to such a conclusion; but I will not retract what I have said. The good people in the world outnumber the bad, ten to one, and the ticket for this sort of belief is "Optimist."
This conversation between the cornet and his mother took place at half-past two. At that time Charles had crept across the park to the Mews, near Belgrave Square, to see his friend the duke's coachman and his son. May I be allowed, without being accused of writing a novel in the "confidential style," to tell you that this is the most important day in the whole story.
At half-past two, William Ravenshoe called at Lord Hainault's house in Grosvenor Square. He saw Lady Ascot. Lady Ascot asked him what sort of weather it was out of doors.
William said that there was a thick fog near the river, but that on the north side of the square it was pleasant. So Lady Ascot said she would like a walk, if it were only for ten minutes, if he would give her his arm; and out they went.
Mary and the children came out too, but they went into the square. Lady Ascot and William walked slowly up and down the pavement alone, for Lady Ascot liked to see the people.
Up and down the north side, in front of the house. At the second turn, when they were within twenty yards of the west end of the square, a tall man with an umbrella over his shoulder came round the corner, and leant against the lamp-post. They both knew him in an instant. It was Lord Ascot. He had not seen them. He had turned to look at a great long-legged chestnut that was coming down the street, from the right, with a human being on his back. The horse was desperately vicious, but very beautiful and valuable. The groom on his back was neither beautiful nor valuable, and was losing his temper with the horse. The horse was one of those horses vicious by nature--such a horse as Rarey (all honour to him) can terrify into submission for a short time; and the groom was a groom, not one of our country lads, every one of whose virtues and vices have been discussed over and over again at the squire's dinner-table, or about whom the rector had scratched his head, and had had into his study for private exhortation or encouragement. Not one of the minority. One of the majority, I fear very much. Reared, like a dog, among the straw, without education, without religion, without self-respect--worse broke than the horse he rode. When I think of all that was said against grooms and stable-helpers during the Rarey fever, I get very angry, I confess it. One man said to me, "When we have had a groom or two killed, we shall have our horses treated properly." Look to your grooms, gentlemen, and don't allow such a blot on the fair fame of England as some racing stables much longer, or there will be a heavy reckoning against you when the books are balanced.
But the poor groom lost his temper with the horse, and beat it over the head. And Lord Ascot stayed to say, "D---- it all, man, you will never do any good like that," though a greater fiend on horseback than Lord Ascot I never saw.
This gave time for Lady Ascot to say, "Come on, my dear Ravenshoe, and let us speak to him." So on they went. Lord Ascot was so busy looking at the horse and groom, that they got close behind him before he saw them.
Nobody being near, Lady Ascot, with a sparkle of her old fun, poked him in the back with her walking-stick. Lord Ascot turned sharply and angrily round, with his umbrella raised for a blow.
When he saw who it was, he burst out into a pleasant laugh. "Now, you grandma," he said, "you keep that old stick of yours quiet, or you'll get into trouble. What do you mean by assaulting the head of the house in the public streets? I am ashamed of you. You, Ravenshoe, you egged her on to do it. I shall have to punch your head before I have done. How are you both?"
"And where have you been, you naughty boy?" said Lady Ascot.
"At Paris," said that ingenuous nobleman, "dicing and brawling, as usual. Nobody can accuse me of hiding _my_ talents in a napkin, grandma.
Those two things are all I am fit for, and I certainly do them with a will. I have fought a duel, too. A Yankee Doodle got it into his head that he might be impertinent to Adelaide; so I took him out and shot him. Don't cry, now. He is not dead. He'll walk lame though, I fancy, for a time. How jolly it is to catch you out here! I dread meeting that insufferable prig Hainault, for fear I should kick him. Give me her arm, my dear Ravenshoe."
"And where is Adelaide?" said Lady Ascot.
"Up at St. John's Wood," said he. "Do steal away, and come and see her.
Grandma, I was very sorry to hear of poor Charles's death--I was indeed.
You know what it has done for me; but, by Gad, I was very sorry."
"Dear Welter--dear Ascot," said Lady Ascot, "I am sure you were sorry.
Oh! if you would repent, my own dear. If you would think of the love that Christ bore you when He died for you. Oh, Ascot, Ascot! will nothing save you from the terrible hereafter?"
"I am afraid not, grandma," said Lord Ascot. "It is getting too cold for you to stay out. Ravenshoe, my dear fellow, take her in."
And so, after a kind good-bye, Lord Ascot walked away towards the south-west.
I am afraid that John Marston was right. I am afraid he spoke the truth when he said that Lord Ascot was a savage, untameable blackguard.
CHAPTER LIX.
LORD ASCOT'S CROWNING ACT OF FOLLY.
Lord Ascot, with his umbrella over his shoulder, swung on down the street, south-westward. The town was pleasant in the higher parts, and so he felt inclined to prolong his walk. He turned to the right into Park Lane.
He was a remarkable-looking man. So tall, so broad, with such a mighty chest, and such a great, red, hairless, cruel face above it, that people, when he paused to look about him, as he did at each street corner, turned to look at him. He did not notice it; he was used it.
And, besides, as he walked there were two or three words ringing yet in his ears which made him look less keenly than usual after the handsome horses and pretty faces which he met in his walk.
"Oh, Ascot, Ascot! will nothing save you from the terrible hereafter?"
"Confound those old women, more particularly when they take to religion.
Always croaking. And grandma Ascot, too, as plucky and good an old soul as any in England--as good a judge of a horse as William Day--taking to that sort of thing. Hang it! it was unendurable. It was bad taste, you know, putting such ideas into a fellow's head. London was dull enough after Paris, without that."
So thought Lord Ascot, as he stood in front of Dudley House, and looked southward. The winter sun was feebly shining where he was, but to the south there was a sea of fog, out of which rose the Wellington statue, looking more exasperating than ever, and the two great houses at the Albert Gate.
"This London is a beastly hole," said he. "I have got to go down into that cursed fog. I wish Tattersall's was anywhere else." But he shouldered his umbrella again, and on he went.
Opposite St. George's Hospital there were a number of medical students.
Two of them, regardless of the order which should always be kept on Her Majesty's highway, were wrestling. Lord Ascot paused for a moment to look at them. He heard one of the students who were looking on say to another, evidently about himself--
"By Gad! what preparations that fellow would cut up into."
"Ah!" said another, "and wouldn't he cuss and d---- under the operation neither."
"I know who that is," said a third. "That's Lord Ascot; the most infernal, headlong, gambling savage in the three kingdoms."
So Lord Ascot, in the odour of sanctity, passed down into Tattersall's yard. There was no one in the rooms. He went out into the yard again.
"Hullo, you sir! Have you seen Mr. Sloane?"
"Mr. Sloane was here not ten minutes ago, my lord. He thought your lordship was not coming. He is gone down to the Groom's Arms."