The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v7

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The open air restored him, and he told me that he had been merely
oppressed by the architect of the inferior classes, whose ceiling sat on
his head. My nerves, he remarked to me, were very exciteable. 'You
should take your wine, Richie,--you require it. Your dear mother had a
low-toned nervous system.' I was silent, and followed him, at once a
captive and a keeper.

This day of slackened sails and a bright sleeping water kept the
yachtsmen on land; there was a crowd to meet the morning boat. Foremost
among those who stepped out of it was the yellow-haired Eckart, little
suspecting what the sight of him signalled to me. I could scarcely greet
him at all, for in him I perceived that my father had fully committed
himself to his plot, and left me nothing to hope. Eckart said something
of Prince Hermann. As we were walking off the pier, I saw Janet
conversing with Prince Ernest, and the next minute Hermann himself was
one of the group. I turned to Eckart for an explanation.

'Didn't I tell you he called at your house in London and travelled down
with me this morning!' said Eckart.

My father looked in the direction of the princes, but his face was for
the moment no index. They bowed to Janet, and began talking hurriedly in
the triangle of road between her hotel, the pier, and the way to the
villas: passing on, and coming to a full halt, like men who are not
reserving their minds. My father stept out toward them. He was met by
Prince Ernest. Hermann turned his back.

It being the hour of the appointment, I delivered Eckart over to Temple's
safe-keeping, and went up to Janet. 'Don't be late, Harry,' she said.

I asked her if she knew the object of the meeting appointed by my
grandfather.

She answered impatiently, 'Do get him away from the prince.' And then:
'I ought to tell you the princess is well, and so on--pardon me just now:
Grandada is kept waiting, and I don't like it.'

Her actual dislike was to see Prince Ernest in dialogue with my father,
it seemed to me; and the manner of both, which was, one would have said,
intimate, anything but the manner of adversaries. Prince Ernest appeared
to affect a pleasant humour; he twice, after shaking my father's hand,
stepped back to him, as if to renew some impression. Their attitude
declared them to be on the best of terms. Janet withdrew her attentive
eyes from observing them, and threw a world of meaning into her
abstracted gaze at me. My father's advance put her to flight.

Yet she gave him the welcome of a high-bred young woman when he entered
the drawing-room of my grandfather's hotel-suite. She was alone, and she
obliged herself to accept conversation graciously. He recommended her to
try the German Baths for the squire's gout, and evidently amused her with
his specific probations for English persons designing to travel in
company, that they should previously live together in a house with a
collection of undisciplined chambermaids, a musical footman, and a mad
cook: to learn to accommodate their tempers. 'I would add a touch of
earthquake, Miss Ilchester, just to make sure that all the party know one
another's edges before starting.' This was too far a shot of nonsense
for Janet, whose native disposition was to refer to lunacy or stupidity,
or trickery, whatsoever was novel to her understanding. 'I, for my
part,' said he, 'stipulate to have for comrade no man who fancies himself
a born and stamped chieftain, no inveterate student of maps, and no dog
with a turn for feeling himself pulled by the collar. And that reminds
me you are amateur of dogs. Have you a Pomeranian boar-hound?'

'No,' said Janet; 'I have never even seen one'

'That high.' My father raised his hand flat.

'Bigger than our Newfoundlands!'

'Without exaggeration, big as a pony. You will permit me to send you
one, warranted to have passed his distemper, which can rarely be done for
our human species, though here and there I venture to guarantee my man as
well as my dog.'

Janet interposed her thanks, declining to take the dog, but he dwelt on
the dog's charms, his youth, stature, appearance, fitness, and grandeur,
earnestly. I had to relieve her apprehensions by questioning where the
dog was.

'In Germany,' he said.

It was not improbable, nor less so that the dog was in Pomerania
likewise.

The entry of my aunt Dorothy, followed by my grandfather, was silent.

'Be seated,' the old man addressed us in a body, to cut short particular
salutations.

My father overshadowed him with drooping shoulders.

Janet wished to know whether she was to remain.

'I like you by me always,' he answered, bluff and sharp.

'We have some shopping to do,' my aunt Dorothy murmured, showing she was
there against her will.

'Do you shop out of London?' said my father; and for some time he
succeeded in making us sit for the delusive picture of a comfortable
family meeting.

My grandfather sat quite still, Janet next to him. 'When you've
finished, Mr. Richmond,' he remarked.

'Mr. Beltham, I was telling Miss Beltham that I join in the abuse of
London exactly because I love it. A paradox! she says. But we seem to
be effecting a kind of insurance on the life of the things we love best
by crying them down violently. You have observed it? Denounce them--
they endure for ever! So I join any soul on earth in decrying our dear
London. The naughty old City can bear it.'

There was a clearing of throats. My aunt Dorothy's foot tapped the
floor.

'But I presume you have done me the honour to invite me to this
conference on a point of business, Mr. Beltham?' said my father,
admonished by the hint.

'I have, sir,' the squire replied.

'And I also have a point. And, in fact, it is urgent, and with your
permission, Mr. Beltham, I will lead the way.'

'No, sir, if you please.

I'm a short speaker, and go to it at once, and I won't detain you a
second after you've answered me.'

My father nodded to this, with the conciliatory comment that it was
business-like.

The old man drew out his pocket-book.

'You paid a debt,' he said deliberately, 'amounting to twenty-one
thousand pounds to my grandson's account.'

'Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts!
. . . but use your own terms, I pray you.'

' I don't ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where
you got it from.'

'You speak bluntly, my dear sir.'

'You won't answer, then?'

'You ask the question as a family matter? I reply with alacrity, to the
best of my ability: and with my hand on my heart, Mr. Beltham, let me
assure you, I very heartily desire the information to be furnished to me.
Or rather--why should I conceal it? The sources are irregular, but a
child could toddle its way to them--you take my indication. Say that I
obtained it from my friends. My friends, Mr. Beltham, are of the kind
requiring squeezing. Government, as my chum and good comrade, Jorian
DeWitt, is fond of saying, is a sponge--a thing that when you dive deep
enough to catch it gives liberal supplies, but will assuredly otherwise
reverse the process by acting the part of an absorbent. I get what I get
by force of arms, or I might have perished long since.'

'Then you don't know where you got it from, sir?'

'Technically, you are correct, sir.'

'A bird didn't bring it, and you didn't find it in the belly of a fish.'

'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to
believe; they did not happen to me.'

'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave
you that sum?'

'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary
circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at
nothing.'

'You suppose you got it from some fool?'

'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?'

'You pretend you got it from Government?'

'I am termed a Pretender by some, Mr. Beltham. The facts are these: I
promised to refund the money, and I fulfilled the promise. There you
have the only answer I can make to you. Now to my own affair. I come to
request you to demand the hand of the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld on
behalf of my son Harry, your grandson; and I possess the assurance of the
prince, her father, that it will be granted. Doubtless you, sir, are of
as old a blood as the prince himself. You will acknowledge that the
honour brought to the family by an hereditary princess is considerable:
it is something. I am prepared to accompany you to his Highness, or not,
as you please. It is but a question of dotation, and a selection from
one or two monosyllables.'

Janet shook her dress.

The squire replied: 'We 'll take that up presently. I haven't quite
done. Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?'

'The usual agent--a solicitor, Mr. Beltham; a gentleman whose business
lay amongst the aristocracy; he is defunct; and a very worthy old
gentleman he was, with a remarkable store of anecdotes of his patrons,
very discreetly told: for you never heard a name from him.'

'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?'

'To condense a long story, sir, the kernel of the matter is, that almost
from the hour I began to stir for the purpose of claiming my rights--
which are transparent enough this old gentleman--certainly from no
sinister motive, I may presume--commenced the payment of an annuity; not
sufficient for my necessities, possibly, but warrant of an agreeable sort
for encouraging my expectations; although oddly, this excellent old Mr.
Bannerbridge invariably served up the dish in a sauce that did not agree
with it, by advising me of the wish of the donator that I should abandon
my Case. I consequently, in common with my friends, performed a little
early lesson in arithmetic, and we came to the one conclusion open to
reflective minds--namely, that I was feared.'

My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time.

'Janet and I have some purchases to make,' she said.

The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was.

'I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night,' said
Janet.

I suggested that, as my presence did not seem to be required, I could
take her on my arm for a walk to the pier-head.

Her face was burning; she would gladly have gone out, but the squire
refused to permit it, and she nodded over her crossed hands, saying that
she was in no hurry.

'Ha! I am,' quoth he.

'Dear Miss Beltham !' my father ejaculated solicitously. 'Here, sir,
oblige me by attending to me,' cried the squire, fuming and blinking.
'I sent for you on a piece of business. You got this money through a
gentleman, a solicitor, named Bannerbridge, did you?'

'His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham.'

'Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?'

She faltered: 'I knew him .... Harry was lost in the streets of London
when he was a little fellow, and the Mr. Bannerbridge I knew found him
and took him to his house, and was very kind to him.'

'What was his Christian name?'

I gave them: 'Charles Adolphus.'

'The identical person!' exclaimed my father.

'Oh! you admit it,' said the squire. 'Ever seen him since the time
Harry was lost, Dorothy?'

'Yes,' she answered. 'I have heard he is dead:

'Did you see him shortly before his death?'

'I happened to see him a short time before.!

'He was your man of business, was he?'

'For such little business as I had to do.'

'You were sure you could trust him, eh?'

'Yes.'

My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply.

'By God, ma'am, you're a truthful woman!'

The old man gave her a glare of admiration.

It was now my turn to undergo examination, and summoned by his apostrophe
to meet his eyes, I could appreciate the hardness of the head I had to
deal with.

'Harry, I beg your pardon beforehand; I want to get at facts; I must ask
you what you know about where the money came from?'

I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it.

'Government? eh?' he sneered.

'I really can't judge whether it came from that quarter,' said I.

'What do you think?--think it likely?'

I thought it unlikely, and yet likelier than that it should have come
from an individual.

'Then you don't suspect any particular person of having sent it in the
nick of time, Harry Richmond?'

I replied: 'No, sir; unless you force me to suspect you.'

He jumped in his chair, astounded and wrathful, confounded me for
insinuating that he was a Bedlamite, and demanded the impudent reason of
my suspecting him to have been guilty of the infernal folly.

I had but the reason to instance that he was rich and kind at heart.

'Rich! kind!' he bellowed. 'Just excuse me--I must ask for the purpose
of my inquiry;--there, tell me, how much do you believe you 've got of
that money remaining? None o' that Peterborough style of counting in the
back of your pate. Say!'

There was a dreadful silence.

My father leaned persuasively forward.

'Mr. Beltham, I crave permission to take up the word. Allow me to remind
you of the prize Harry has won. The prince awaits you to bestow on him
the hand of his daughter--'

'Out with it, Harry,' shouted the squire.

'Not to mention Harry's seat in Parliament,' my father resumed, 'he has a
princess to wife, indubitably one of the most enviable positions in the
country! It is unnecessary to count on future honours; they may be
alluded to. In truth, sir, we make him the first man in the country.
Not necessarily Premier: you take my meaning: he possesses the
combination of social influence and standing with political achievements,
and rank and riches in addition--'

'I 'm speaking to my grandson, sir,' the squire rejoined, shaking himself
like a man rained on. 'I 'm waiting for a plain answer, and no lie.
You've already confessed as much as that the money you told me on your
honour you put out to interest; psh!--for my grandson was smoke. Now
let's hear him.'

My father called out: 'I claim a hearing! The money you speak of was put
out to the very highest interest. You have your grandson in Parliament,
largely acquainted with the principal members of society, husband of an
hereditary princess! You have only at this moment to propose for her
hand. I guarantee it to you. With that money I have won him everything.
Not that I would intimate to you that princesses are purchaseable. The
point is, I knew how to employ it.'

'In two months' time, the money in the Funds in the boy's name--you told
me that.'

'You had it in the Funds in Harry Richmond's name, sir.'

'Well, sir, I'm asking him whether it's in the Funds now.'

'Oh! Mr. Beltham.'

'What answer's that?'

The squire was really confused by my father's interruption, and lost
sight of me.

'I ask where it came from: I ask whether it's squandered?' he continued.

'Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so
immediately.'

'What 's he saying?' cried the baffled old man.

'I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.'

'Is the money there?'

'The lady is here.'

'I said money, sir.'

'A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.' My grandfather's
brows and mouth were gathering for storm. Janet touched his knee.

'Where the devil your understanding truckles, if you have any, I don't
know,' he muttered. 'What the deuce--lady got to do with money!'

'Oh!' my father laughed lightly, 'customarily the alliance is, they say,
as close as matrimony. Pardon me. To speak with becoming seriousness,
Mr. Beltham, it was duly imperative that our son should be known in
society, should be, you will apprehend me, advanced in station, which I
had to do through the ordinary political channel. There could not but be
a considerable expenditure for such a purpose.'

'In Balls, and dinners!'

'In everything that builds a young gentleman's repute.'

'You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry
Richmond's sake?'

'On my veracity, I did, sir!'

'Please don't talk like a mountebank. I don't want any of your
roundabout words for truth; we're not writing a Bible essay. I try my
best to be civil.'

My father beamed on him.

'I guarantee you succeed, sir. Nothing on earth can a man be so
absolutely sure of as to succeed in civility, if he honestly tries at it.
Jorian DeWitt,--by the way, you may not know him--an esteemed old friend
of mine, says--that is, he said once--to a tolerably impudent fellow whom
he had disconcerted with a capital retort, "You may try to be a
gentleman, and blunder at it, but if you will only try to be his humble
servant, we are certain to establish a common footing." Jorian, let me
tell you, is a wit worthy of our glorious old days.'

My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath.

'Well, sir, I didn't ask you here for your opinion or your friend's, and
I don't care for modern wit.'

'Nor I, Mr. Beltham, nor I! It has the reek of stable straw. We are of
one mind on that subject. The thing slouches, it sprawls. It--to quote
Jorian once more--is like a dirty, idle, little stupid boy who cannot
learn his lesson and plays the fool with the alphabet. You smile, Miss
Ilchester: you would appreciate Jorian. Modern wit is emphatically
degenerate. It has no scintillation, neither thrust nor parry. I
compare it to boxing, as opposed to the more beautiful science of
fencing.'

'Well, sir, I don't want to hear your comparisons,' growled the squire,
much oppressed. 'Stop a minute . . .'

'Half a minute to me, sir,' said my father, with a glowing reminiscence
of Jorian DeWitt, which was almost too much for the combustible old man,
even under Janet's admonition.

My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the
floor, and he at once drew in.

'Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.'

'You do? Then tell me what brought this princess to England?'

'The conviction that Harry had accomplished his oath to mount to an
eminence in his country, and had made the step she is about to take less,
I will say, precipitous: though I personally decline to admit a pointed
inferiority.'

'You wrote her a letter.'

'That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate
illness, was the finishing touch to the noble lady's passion.'

'Attack? I know nothing about an attack. You wrote her a letter and
wrote her a lie. You said he was dying.'

'I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.'

'You said he had only a few days to live.'

'So in my affliction I feared.'

'Will you swear you didn't write that letter with the intention of
drawing her over here to have her in your power, so that you might
threaten you'd blow on her reputation if she or her father held out
against you and all didn't go as you fished for it?'

My father raised his head proudly.

'I divide your query into two parts. I wrote, sir, to bring her to his
side. I did not write with any intention to threaten.'

'You've done it, though.'

'I have done this,' said my father, toweringly: 'I have used the power
placed in my hands by Providence to overcome the hesitations of a
gentleman whose illustrious rank predisposes him to sacrifice his
daughter's happiness to his pride of birth and station. Can any one
confute me when I assert that the princess loves Harry Richmond?'

I walked abruptly to one of the windows, hearing a pitiable wrangling on
the theme. My grandfather vowed she had grown wiser, my father protested
that she was willing and anxious; Janet was appealed to. In a strangely-
sounding underbreath, she said, 'The princess does not wish it.'

'You hear that, Mr. Richmond?' cried the squire.

He returned: 'Can Miss Ilchester say that the Princess Ottilia does not
passionately love my son Harry Richmond? The circumstances warrant me in
beseeching a direct answer.'

She uttered: 'No.'

I looked at her; she at me.

'You can conduct a case, Richmond,' the squire remarked.

My father rose to his feet. 'I can conduct my son to happiness and
greatness, my dear sir; but to some extent I require your grandfatherly
assistance; and I urge you now to present your respects to the prince and
princess, and judge yourself of his Highness's disposition for the match.
I assure you in advance that he welcomes the proposal.'

'I do not believe it,' said Janet, rising.

My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying: 'In justice to Harry the
proposal should be made. At least it will settle this dispute.'

Janet stared at her, and the squire threw his head back with an amazed
interjection.

'What! You're for it now? Why, at breakfast you were all t' other way!
You didn't want this meeting because you pooh-poohed the match.'

'I do think you should go,' she answered. 'You have given Harry your
promise, and if he empowers you, it is right to make the proposal, and
immediately, I think.'

She spoke feverishly, with an unsweet expression of face, that seemed to
me to indicate vexedness at the squire's treatment of my father.

'Harry,' she asked me in a very earnest fashion, 'is it your desire?
Tell your grandfather that it is, and that you want to know your fate.
Why should there be any dispute on a fact that can be ascertained by
crossing a street? Surely it is trifling.'

Janet stooped to whisper in the squire's ear.

He caught the shock of unexpected intelligence apparently; faced about,
gazed up, and cried: 'You too! But I haven't done here. I 've got to
cross-examine . . . Pretend, do you mean? Pretend I'm ready to go?
I can release this prince just as well here as there.'

Janet laughed faintly.

'I should advise your going, grandada.'

'You a weathercock woman!' he reproached her, quite mystified, and fell
to rubbing his head. 'Suppose I go to be snubbed?'

'The prince is a gentleman, grandada. Come with me. We will go alone.
You can relieve the prince, and protect him.'

My father nodded: 'I approve.'

'And grandada--but it will not so much matter if we are alone, though,'
Janet said.

'Speak out.'

'See the princess as well; she must be present.'

'I leave it to you,' he said, crestfallen.

Janet pressed my aunt Dorothy's hand.

'Aunty, you were right, you are always right. This state of suspense is
bad all round, and it is infinitely worse for the prince and princess.'

My aunt Dorothy accepted the eulogy with a singular trembling wrinkle of
the forehead.

She evidently understood that Janet had seen her wish to get released.

For my part, I shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their
unaccountable changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them
over to baffle him. The old man tried to insist on their sitting down
again, but Janet perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She
spoke to him softly. He was one black frown; displeased with her;
obedient, however.

Too soon after, I had the key to the enigmatical scene. At the moment I
was contemptuous of riddles, and heard with idle ears Janet's promptings
to him and his replies. 'It would be so much better to settle it here,'
he said. She urged that it could not be settled here without the whole
burden and responsibility falling upon him.

'Exactly,' interposed my father, triumphing.

Dorothy Beltham came to my side, and said, as if speaking to herself,
while she gazed out of window, 'If a refusal, it should come from the
prince.' She dropped her voice: 'The money has not been spent? Has it?
Has any part of it been spent? Are you sure you have more than three
parts of it?'

Now, that she should be possessed by the spirit of parsimony on my behalf
at such a time as this, was to my conception insanely comical, and her
manner of expressing it was too much for me. I kept my laughter under to
hear her continue: 'What numbers are flocking on the pier! and there is
no music yet. Tell me, Harry, that the money is all safe; nearly all; it
is important to know; you promised economy.'

'Music did you speak of, Miss Beltham?' My father bowed to her gallantly.
'I chanced to overhear you. My private band performs to the public at
midday.'

She was obliged to smile to excuse his interruption.

'What's that? whose band?' said the squire, bursting out of Janet's
hand. 'A private band?'

Janet had a difficulty in resuming her command of him. The mention of
the private band made him very restive.

'I 'm not acting on my own judgement at all in going to these foreign
people,' he said to Janet. 'Why go? I can have it out here and an end
to it, without bothering them and their interpreters.'

He sang out to me: 'Harry, do you want me to go through this form for
you?--mn'd unpleasant!'

My aunt Dorothy whispered in my ear: 'Yes! yes!'

'I feel tricked!' he muttered, and did not wait for me to reply before he
was again questioning my aunt Dorothy concerning Mr. Bannerbridge, and my
father as to 'that sum of money.' But his method of interrogation was
confused and pointless. The drift of it was totally obscure.

'I'm off my head to-day,' he said to Janet, with a sideshot of his eye at
my father.

'You waste time and trouble, grandada,' said she.

He vowed that he was being bewildered, bothered by us all; and I thought
I had never seen him so far below his level of energy; but I had not seen
him condescend to put himself upon a moderately fair footing with my
father. The truth was, that Janet had rigorously schooled him to bridle
his temper, and he was no match for the voluble easy man without the
freest play of his tongue.

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