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CHAPTER XVIII. AUNT DOROTHEA

“You must come down with me for one day, Tom, to see an old aunt of mine at Bournemouth,” said Hunter to young Dill. “I never omitted going to see her the first thing whenever I landed in England, and she ‘ll not forgive me if I were to do so now.”

“But why should I go, sir? My presence would only trouble the comfort of a family meeting.”

“Quite the reverse. She ‘ll be delighted to see you. It will be such a triumph to her, amongst all her neighbors, to have had a visit from the hero of the day, – the fellow that all the print-shops are full of. Why, man, you are worth five hundred pounds to me. I ‘m not sure I might not say double as much.”

“In that case, sir, I ‘m perfectly at your orders.”

And down they went, and arrived late on the day after this conversation at an old-fashioned manor-house, where Miss Dorothy Hunter had passed some sixty-odd years of her life. Though to Tom she seemed to bear a great resemblance to old Miss Barrington, there was really little likeness between them, beyond an inordinate pride of birth, and an intense estimation for the claims of family. Miss Hunter’s essential characteristic was a passion for celebrities; a taste somewhat difficult to cultivate in a very remote and little visited locality. The result was that she consoled herself by portraits, or private letters, or autographs of her heroes, who ranged over every imaginable career in life, and of whom, by mere dint of iteration, she had grown to believe herself the intimate friend or correspondent.

No sooner had she learned that her nephew was to be accompanied by the gallant young soldier whose name was in every newspaper than she made what she deemed the most suitable preparations for his reception. Her bedroom was hung round with portraits of naval heroes, or pictures of sea-fights. Grim old admirals, telescope in hand, or with streaming hair, shouting out orders to board the enemy, were on every side; while, in the place of honor, over the fireplace, hung a vacant frame, destined one day to contain the hero of the hour, Tom Dill himself.

Never was a poor fellow in this world less suited to adulation of this sort. He was either overwhelmed with the flattery, or oppressed by a terror of what some sensible spectator – if such there were – would think of the absurd position in which he was forced to stand. And when he found himself obliged to inscribe his name in a long column of illustrious autographs, the sight of his own scarce legible characters filled up the measure of his shame.

“He writes like the great Turenne,” said Miss Dorothy; “he always wrote from above downwards, so that no other name than his own could figure on the page.”

“I got many a thrashing for it at school, ma’am,” said Tom, apologizing, “and so I gave up writing altogether.”

“Ah, yes! the men of action soon learn to despise the pen; they prefer to make history rather than record it.”

It was not easy for Hunter to steer his bashful friend through all the shoals and quicksands of such flattery; but, on the plea of his broken health and strength, he hurried him early to his bed, and returned to the fireside, where his aunt awaited him.

“He’s charming, if he were only not so diffident. Why will he not be more confiding, more at his ease with me, – like Mungo Park, or Sir Sidney Smith?”

“After a while, so he will, aunt. You ‘ll see what a change there will be in him at our next visit All these flatteries he meets with are too much for him; but when we come down again, you ‘ll see him without these distracting influences. Then bear in mind his anxieties, – he has not yet seen his family; he is eager to be at home again. I carried him off here positively in spite of himself, and on the strict pledge of only for one day.”

“One day! And do you mean that you are to go tomorrow?”

“No help for it, aunt. Tom is to be at Windsor on Saturday. But for that, he would already have been on his way to Ireland.”

“Then there’s no time to be lost. What can we do for him? He’snot rich?”

“Hasn’t a shilling; but would reject the very shadow of such assistance.”

“Not if a step were purchased for him; without his knowledge, I mean.”

“It would be impossible that he should not know it.”

“But surely there is some way of doing it A handsome sum to commemorate his achievement might be subscribed. I would begin it with a thousand pounds.”

“He’d not accept it. I know him thoroughly. There’s only one road to him through which he would not deem a favor a burden.”

“And what of that?”

“A kindness to his sister. I wish you saw her, aunt!”

“Is she like him?”

“Like him? Yes; but very much better-looking. She’s singularly handsome, and such a girl! so straightforward and so downright It is a positive luxury to meet her after all the tiresome conventionalities of the every-day young lady.”

“Shall I ask her here?”

“Oh, if you would, aunt! – if you only would!”

“That you may fall in love with her, I suppose?”

“No, aunt, that is done already.”

“I think, sir, I might have been apprised of this attachment!” said she, bridling.

“I didn’t know it myself, aunt, till I was close to the Cape. I thought it a mere fancy as we dropped down Channel; grew more thoughtful over it in the Bay of Biscay; began to believe it as we discovered St. Helena; and came back to England resolved to tell you the whole truth, and ask you, at least, to see her and know her.”

“So I will, then. I ‘ll write and invite her here.”

“You ‘re the best and kindest aunt in Christendom!” said he, rushing over and kissing her.

“I’m not going to let you read it, sir,” said she, with a smile. “If she show it to you, she may. Otherwise it is a matter between ourselves.”

“Be it entirely as you wish, aunt.”

“And if all this goes hopefully on,” said she, after a pause, “is Aunt Dorothea to be utterly forgotten? No more visits here, – no happy summer evenings, – no more merry Christmases?”

“Nay, aunt, I mean to be your neighbor. That cottage you have often offered me, near the rocks, I ‘ll not refuse it again, – that is, if you tempt me once more.”

“It is yours, and the farm along with it. Go to bed now, and leave me to write my note, which will require-some thought and reflection.”

“I know you ‘ll do it well. I know none who could equal you in such a task.”

“I ‘ll try and acquit myself with credit,” said she, as she sat down to the writing-desk.

“And what is all this about, – a letter from Miss Dorothea to Polly,” said Tom, as they drove along the road back to town. “Surely they never met?”

“Never; but my aunt intends that they shall. She writes to ask your sister to come on a visit here.”

“But why not have told her the thing was impossible? You know us. You have seen the humble way we live, – how many a care it costs to keep up that little show of respectability that gets us sufferance in the world, and how one little attempt beyond this is quite out of our reach. Why not have told her frankly, sir, ‘These people are not in our station’?”

“Just because I acknowledge no such distinction as you want to draw, my good fellow. If my aunt has asked your sister to come three hundred miles to see her, she has thought over her request with more foresight than you or I could have given it, take my word for it. When she means kindly, she plans thoughtfully. And now I will tell you what I never meant to have spoken of, that it was only last night she asked me how could she be of use to you?”

“To me!” said he, blushing, “and why to me?”

“Can you never be brought to see that you are a hero, Tom, – that all the world is talking of you just now, and people feel a pride in being even passingly mixed up with your name?”

“If they only knew how much I have to be ashamed of before I can begin to feel vain, they ‘d not be so ready with their praise or their flattery.”

“I ‘ll talk over all that with your sister Polly,” said Hunter, gayly; for he saw the serious spirit that was gaining over the poor fellow.

“Do so, sir; and you’ll soon see, if there’s anything good or hopeful about me, where it comes from and who gave it.”

CHAPTER XIX. FROM GENERAL CONYERS TO HIS SON

Beddwys, N. Wales

My dear Fred, – How happy I am that you are enjoying yourself; short of being with you, nothing could have given me greater pleasure than your letter. I like your portrait of the old lady, whose eccentricities are never inconsistent with some charming traits of disposition, and a nature eminently high-minded and honorable; but why not more about Josephine? She is surely oftener in your thoughts than your one brief paragraph would bespeak, and has her due share in making the cottage the delightful home you describe it to be. I entreat you to be more open and more explicit on this theme, for it may yet be many days before I can explore the matter for myself; since, instead of the brief absence I calculated on, we may, for aught I know, be detained here for some weeks.

It is clear to me, from your last, a note of mine from Liverpool to you must have miscarried. You ask me where you are to address me next, and what is the nature of the business which has called me away so suddenly? I gave you in that letter all the information that I was myself possessed of, and which, in three words, amounted to this: Old Barrington, having involved himself in a serious personal quarrel with Stapylton, felt, or believed, that he ought to give him a meeting. Seeing how useless all attempt at dissuasion proved, and greatly fearing what hands he might fall into, I agreed to be his friend on the occasion; trusting, besides, that by a little exercise of tact and temper, extreme measures might be avoided, and the affair arranged. You may well believe, without my insisting further upon it, that I felt very painfully how we should both figure before the world, – a man of eighty-three or four, accompanied to the ground by another of sixty-odd! I know well how, in the changed temper of the age, such acts are criticised, and acquiesce, besides, in the wiser spirit that now prevails. However, as I said before, if Barrington must go on, it were better he should do so under the guidance of a sincere friend than of one casually elevated to act as such, in a moment of emergency.

We left Dublin, by the mail-packet, on Wednesday; and after a rough passage of twenty-three hours, reached Liverpool too late to catch the evening coach. Thus detained, we only arrived here on Sunday night late. At my club I found a note from Stapylton, stating that he had daily called there to learn if we had come, but the boisterous state of the weather sufficiently explained our delay, and giving an address where he might be found, as well as that of “his friend.” Now, it so chanced that this friend was a very notorious person well known to me in India, where he had been tried for an unfair duel, and narrowly escaped – I should say unjustly escaped – being hanged. Though I had fully made up my mind not to be placed in any relations with such a man, I thought it would be as well that Barrington should know the character of his antagonist’s friend from other sources, and so I invited an old Bengal companion of mine to dine with us the day after we arrived. Stamer was a judge of the criminal court, and tried Duff Brown, the man I speak of. As we sat over our wine together, we got upon this case, and Stamer declared that it was the only criminal cause in his whole life wherein he regretted the escape of the guilty party. “The fellow,” said he, “defended himself in a three hours’ speech, ably and powerfully; but enunciated at times – as it were unconsciously – sentiments so abominable and so atrocious as to destroy the sympathy a part of his discourse excited. But somehow boldness has its fascination, and he was acquitted.”

Barrington’s old-fashioned notions were not, however, to be shocked even by this narrative, and he whispered to me, “Unpleasant for you, Conyers. Wish it might have been otherwise, but it can’t be helped.” We next turned to discuss Duff Brown’s friend, and Stamer exclaimed, “Why, that’s the man they have been making all this fuss about in India. He was, or he said he was, the adopted son of Howard Stapylton; but the family never believed the adoption, nor consented to receive him, and at this moment a Moonshee, who acted as Persian secretary to old Stapylton, has turned up with some curious disclosures, which, if true, would show that this young fellow held a very humble position in Stapylton’s household, and never was in his confidence. This Moonshee was at Malta a few weeks ago, and may be, for aught I know, in England now.”

I asked and obtained Barrington’s permission to tell how we were ourselves involved with this Major Stapylton, and he quickly declared that, while the man stood thus accused, there could be no thought of according him a satisfaction. The opinion was not the less stringent that Stamer was himself an Irishman and of a fighting family.

I am not very sure that we made Barrington a convert to our opinions, but we at least, as we separated for the night, left him doubtful and hesitating. I had not been in bed above an hour, when Mr. Withering awoke me. He had followed us from Dublin as soon as he learned our departure, and, going straight to a magistrate, swore informations against both Barrington and Stapylton. “My old friend will never forgive me, I know,” said he; “but if I had not done this, I should never have forgiven myself.” It was arranged between us that I was to mention the fact of such informations having been sworn, without stating by whom, to Barrington, and then persuade him to get privately away from town before a warrant could be served. I leave you to imagine that my task was not without its difficulties, but, before the day broke, I succeeded in inducing him to leave, and travelling by post without halt, we arrived at this quiet spot yesterday evening. Barrington, with all his good temper, is marvellously put out and irritable, saying, “This is not the way such things were done once;” and peevishly muttered, “I wonder what poor Harry Beamish or Guy Hutchinson would say to it all?” One thing is quite clear, we had got into a wasps’ nest; Stapylton and his friend were both fellows that no honorable man would like to deal with, and we must wait with a little patience to find some safe road out of this troublesome affair.

A letter came to B. from the India House the evening before we left town, but he handed it to me before he finished reading it, merely remarking, “The old story, ‘Yours of the ninth or nineteenth has duly been received,’ &c.” But I found that it contained a distinct admission that his claim was not ill-founded, and that some arrangement ought to be come to.

I now close my very lengthy epistle, promising, however, that as soon as I hear from town, either from Withering or Stamer, you shall have my news. We are, of course, close prisoners here for the present, for though the warrant would not extend to Ireland, Barrington’s apprehensions of being “served” with such a writ at all would induce him to hide for six months to come.

I scarcely ask you to write to me here, not knowing our probable stay; but to-morrow may, perhaps, tell us something on this head. Till when, believe me,

Yours affectionately,

Ormsby Conters.

My most cordial greeting to Miss Barrington, and my love to her niece.

FROM PETER BARRINGTON TO HIS SISTER MISS DINAH BARRINGTON.

Long’s Hotel, Bond Street.

My dear Dinah, – I hardly know how to tell you what has happened, or what is happening around me. I came over here to meet Major Stapylton, but find that there is no such person, – the man who calls himself so being a mere adventurer, who had taken the name, and, I believe, no small share of the goods, of its owner, got into the Bengal army, thence into our own service, and though not undistinguished for gallantry, seems to have led a life of ceaseless roguery and intrigue. He knew all about poor George’s business, and was in correspondence with those we believe to be our friends in India, but who now turn out to be our inveterate enemies. This we have got at by the confession of one of those Oriental fellows they call Moonshees, who has revealed all their intercourse for years back, and even shown a document setting forth the number of rupees he was to receive when Stapylton had been married to Josephine. The Moonshee is very ill, and his examination can only be conducted at intervals; but he insists on a point of much importance to us, which is, that Stapylton induced him to tear out of the Rajah’s Koran the page on which the adoption of George was written, and signed by the Meer himself. He received a large sum for this service, which, however, he evaded by a fraud, sending over to England not the real document itself, but a copy made by himself, and admirably counterfeited. It was the possession of this by Stapylton which enabled him to exercise a great control over our suit, – now averring that it was lost; now, under pledge of secrecy, submitting it to the inspection of some of the Indian authorities. Stapylton, in a word, saw himself in a position to establish our claim, whenever the time came that by making Josephine his wife, he could secure the fortune. This is all that we know up to this, but it is a great deal, and shows in what a maze of duplicity and treachery we have been involved for more than twenty years. The chief point, however, is that the real deed, written in the Meer’s Koran, and torn out of it by the Moonshee, in his first impulse to forward it to Stapylton, is now extant, and the Koran itself is there to show the jagged margin of the torn-out leaf, and the corresponding page on the opposite side of the volume. Stapylton refuses to utter one word since the accusation against him has been made; and as the charges stand to falsifying documents, abstraction of funds, and other derelictions in India, he is now under a heavy bail to appear when called on.

The whole business has made me so nervous and excitable that I cannot close my eyes at night, and I feel feverish and restless all day. It is very shocking to think of a man one has never injured, never heard of, animated with a spirit so inimical as to pass years of life in working ill to us. He would appear to have devoted himself to the task of blackening poor George’s character and defaming him. It would seem that Mr. Howard Stapylton was one of those who took an active part against George. Whether this young fellow caught the contagion of this antipathy, or helped to feed it, I cannot tell; but it is certain that all the stories of cruelty and oppression the India Board used to trump up to us came from this one source; and at the end of all he seeks to be one of a family he has striven for years to ruin and to crush! I am lost in my efforts to understand this, though Stamer and Withering assure me they can read the man like print. Indeed, they see inferences and motives in fifty things which convey nothing to me; and whenever I feel myself stopped by some impassable barrier, to them it is only a bridge that conducts to a fresh discovery.

The Stapyltons are all in arms now that another sportsman has winged the bird for them; and each day increases the number of accusations against this unfortunate fellow. It is true, dear Dinah, that our own prospects brighten through all this. I am constantly receiving civil messages and hopeful assurances; and even some of the directors have called to express sympathy and good wishes. But how chilled is the happiness that comes dashed with the misfortune of another! What a terrible deal it detracts from our joy to know that every throb of pleasure to ourselves has cost a pang of misery elsewhere! I wish this fellow could have gone his way, never minding us; or, if that could n’t be, that he ‘d have grown tired of persecuting those who had never harmed him, and given us up!

They are now assailing him on all sides. One has found that he forged a will; another that he falsified a signature; and a miserable creature – a native Indian, who happened to be in that Manchester riot the other day – has now been ferreted out to swear that Stapylton followed him through a suburb, down a lane, and into a brick-field, where he cut him down and left him for dead. There seems a great deal of venom and acrimony in all this; and though the man is unquestionably not my friend, and I see that this persecution continues, I find it very hard not to stand by him.

As for Withering, it has made the veteran ten years younger. He is up every morning at five, and I hear that he never goes to his room till long past midnight. These are the pastimes that to such men replace the sports of the field and the accidents of the chase. They have their vacillations of hope and fear, their moments of depression and of triumph in them; and they run a fellow-creature to earth with all the zest of a hard rider after a fox.

Tell my darling Fifine that I am longing to be at home again, – longing for the quiet roof, and the roses at the window, and the murmur of the river, and her own sweet voice better than them all. And what a deal of happiness is in our power if we would only consent to enjoy it, without running after some imaginary good, some fancied blessing, which is to crown our wishes! If I could but only have guessed at the life of anxiety, doubt, and vacillation the pursuit of this claim would have cost me, – the twenty years of fever, —

I give you my word, Dinah, I ‘d rather have earned my daily bread with a spade, or, when too old for that, taken to fishing for a livelihood.

But why do I complain of anything at this moment? When have I been so truly happy for many a long year? Conyers never leaves me, – he talks of George from morning to night. And I now see that with all my affection for that dear boy, I only half knew his noble nature, his fine and generous character. If you only heard of the benevolent things he has done; the poor fellows he has sent home to their families at his own cost; the sums he has transmitted to wives and widows of soldiers in England; the children whose care and support he has provided for! These were the real drains on that fortune that the world thought wasted and squandered in extravagance. And do you know, Dinah, there is a vein of intense egotism in my heart that I never so much as suspected! I found it out by chance, – it was in marking how far less I was touched by the highest and best traits of my poor boy than by the signs of love to myself! and when Conyers said, “He was always talking about you; he never did anything important without the question, ‘How would “Dad” like this, I wonder? would “Dad” say “God speed” in this case?’ And his first glass of wine every day was to the health of that dear old father over the seas.”

To you who loved him only a little less than myself, I have no shame in the confession of this weakness. I suppose Conyers, however, has hit upon it, for he harps on this theme continually, and, in sheer pride of heart, I feel ten years younger for it.

Here comes Withering to say, “Some more wonderful news;” but I have begged him to keep it till I have sealed this letter, which if it grows any longer, I ‘ll never have courage to send to you. A dozen kisses to Fifine I can, however, transmit without any increase to the postage. Give my love to young Conyers; tell him I am charmed with his father, – I never met any one so companionable to me, and I only long for the day when the same roof shall cover all of us.

Yours, my dearest sister, ever affectionately,

Peter Barrington.

FROM T. WITHERING, ESQ., TO MISS DINAH BARRINGTON, “THE HOME.”

Long’s Hotel, Bond Street.

My dear Miss Barrington, – If your brother has deputed me to write to you, it is not that he is ill, but simply that the excitement caused by some late events here has so completely mastered him that he can neither sit quiet a moment, nor address him steadily to any task. Nor am I surprised it should be so. Old, weather-beaten sailor on the ocean of life as I am, I feel an amount of feverishness and anxiety I am half ashamed of. Truth is, my dear Miss Dinah, we lawyers get so much habituated to certain routine rogueries that we are almost shocked when we hear of a wickedness not designated by a statute. But I must not occupy your time with such speculations, the more since I have only a brief space to give to that report of proceedings to which I want your attention. And, first of all, I will entreat you to forgive me for all want of sequence or connection in what I may say, since events have grown so jumbled together in my mind, that it is perfectly impossible for me to be certain whether what I relate should come before or after some other recorded fact In a word, I mean to give you an outline of our discoveries, without showing the track of our voyage on the map, or even saying how we came by our knowledge.

You are aware, Barrington tells me, how Stapylton came by the name he bears. Aware that he was for some of his earlier years domesticated with old Howard Stapylton at Ghurtnapore, in some capacity between confidential valet and secretary, – a position that was at once one of subordination and trust, – it would now appear that a Moonshee, who had long served Colonel Barrington as Persian correspondent, came into Howard Stapylton’s service in the same capacity: how introduced, or by whom, we know not. With this Moonshee, the young fellow I speak of became an intimate and close friend, and it is supposed obtained from him all that knowledge of your nephew’s affairs which enabled him to see to what his claim pretended, and what were its prospects of success. It is now clear enough that he only regarded this knowledge at first as a means of obtaining favor from the Indian Government. It was, in fact, by ceding to them in detail certain documents, that he got his first commission in the Madras Fusiliers, and afterwards his promotion in the same regiment; and when, grown more ambitious, he determined to enter the King’s service, the money for purchase came from the same source. Being, however, a fellow of extravagant habits, his demands grew at last to be deemed excessive and importunate; and though his debts had been paid three several times, he was again found involving himself as before, and again requiring assistance. This application was, however, resisted; and it was apparently on the strength of that refusal that he suddenly changed his tactics, turned his attention towards us, and bethought him that by forwarding your grandniece’s claim, – if he could but win her affections in the mean while, – he would secure as a wife one of the richest heiresses in Europe. An examination of dates proves this, by showing that his last application to the Indian Board was only a few weeks before he exchanged into the regiment of Hussars he lately served with, and just then ordered to occupy Kilkenny. In one word, when it was no longer profitable to oppose Josephine’s claim, he determined to support it and make it his own. The “Company,” however, fully assured that by the papers in their possession they could prove their own cause against Colonel Barrington, resisted all his menaces, – when, what does he do? It was what only a very daring and reckless fellow would ever have thought of, – one of those insolent feats of boldness that succeed by the very shock they create. He goes to the Secret Committee at the India House and says: “Of the eighteen documents I have given you, seven are false. I will not tell you which they are, but if you do not speedily compromise this claim and make a satisfactory settlement on Colonel Barrington’s daughter, I’ll denounce you, at all the peril it may be to myself.” At first they agree, then they hesitate, then they treat again, and so does the affair proceed, till suddenly – no one can guess why – they assume a tone of open defiance, and flatly declare they will hold no further intercourse with him, and even threaten with exposure any demand on his part.

This rejection of him came at a critical moment. It was just when the press had begun to comment on the cruelty of his conduct at Peterloo, and when a sort of cry was got up through the country to have him dismissed from the service. We all saw, but never suspected, why he was so terribly cut up at this time. It was hard to believe that he could have taken mere newspaper censure so much to heart. We never guessed the real cause, never saw that he was driven to his last expedient, and obliged to prejudice all his hope of success by precipitancy. If he could not make Josephine his wife at once, on the very moment, all was lost. He made a bold effort at this. Who knows if he might not have succeeded but for you, as Josephine was very young, my old friend himself utterly unfit to cope with anything but open hostility? I say again, I ‘d not have answered for the result if you had not been in command of the fortress. At all events, he failed; and in the failure lost his temper so far as to force a quarrel upon your brother. He failed, however; and no sooner was he down, than the world was atop of him: creditors, Jews, bill-discounters, and, last of all, the Stapyltons, who, so long as he bore their family name thousands of miles off, or associated it with deeds of gallantry, said nothing; now, that they saw it held up to attack and insult, came forward to declare that he never belonged to them, and at length appealed formally to the Horse Guards, to learn under what designation he had entered the service, and at what period taken the name he went by.

Stapylton’s application for leave to sell out had just been sent in; and once more the newspapers set up the cry that this man should not be permitted to carry away to Aix and Baden the proceeds of a sale which belonged to his “creditors.” You know the world, and I need not tell you all the pleasant things it told this fellow, for men are pretty nigh as pitiless as crows to their wounded. I thought the complication had reached its limit, when I learned yesterday evening that Stapylton had been summoned before a police magistrate for a case of assault committed by him when in command of his regiment at Manchester. The case had evidently been got up by a political party, who, seeing the casual unpopularity of the man, determined to profit by it. The celebrated radical barrister, Hesketh, was engaged for the plaintiff.