Chapter 10

We fought our old battles over again on those nights; and we did not forget the past and gone; for Mrs Bantem stood up after supper, with her stiff glass of grog in her hand--a glass into which I saw a couple of tears fall--as she spoke of the dead--the brave men who fell in defence of the defenceless and innocent, hoping that the earth lay lightly on the grave of Lieutenant Leigh, while she proposed the memory of brave Harry Lant.

We drank that toast in silence; and more than one eye was wet as the old scenes came back--scenes such as I hope may never fall to the lot of men again to witness; for if there is ever a fervent prayer sent up to the Maker of All, by me, an old soldier, who has much to answer for, it is contained in those words, so familiar to you all:

"Peace on Earth!" _Amen_.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

THE GOLDEN INCUBUS.

SIR JOHN DRINKWATER IS ECCENTRIC.

"You're an old fool, Burdon, and it's all your fault."

That's what Sir John said, as he shook his Malacca cane at me; and I suppose it was my fault; but then, how could I see what was going to happen?

It began in 1851. I remember it so well because that was the year of the Great Exhibition, and Sir John treated me to a visit there; and when I'd been and was serving breakfast next morning, he asked me about it, and laughed and asked me if I'd taken much notice of the goldsmiths' work. I said I had, and that it was a great mistake to clean gold plate with anything but rouge.

"Why?" he said.

Because, I told him, if any of the plate-powder happened to be left in the cracks, if it was rouge it gave a good effect; but if it was a white preparation, it looked dirty and bad.

"Then we'll have all the chests open to-morrow, James Burdon," he said; "and you shall give the old gold plate a good clean up with rouge, and I'll help you."

"You, Sir John?"

He nodded. And the very next day he sent all the other servants to the Exhibition, came down to my pantry, opened the plate-room, and put on an apron just like a servant would, and helped me to clean that gold plate. He got tired by one o'clock, and sat down upon a chair and looked at it all glistening as it was spread out on the dresser and shelves--some bright with polishing, some dull and dead and ancient-looking. Cups and bowls and salvers and round dishes covered with coats of arms; some battered and bent, and some as perfect as on the day it left the goldsmith's hands.

I'd worked hard--as hard as I could, for sneezing, for I was doing that half the time, just as if I had a bad cold. For every cup or dish was kept in a green baize bag that fitted in one of the old ironbound oak chests, and these chests were lined with green baize. And all this being exceedingly old, the moths had got in; and pounds and pounds of pepper had been scattered about the baize, to keep them away.

"I'll have a glass of wine, Burdon," Sir John says at last; "and we'll put it all away again. It's very beautiful. That's Cellini work-- real," he says, as he took up a great golden bowl, all hammered and punched and engraved. "But the whole lot of it is an incubus, for I can't use it, and I don't want to make a show."

"Take a glass yourself, my man," he said, as I got him the sherry--a fresh bottle from the outer cellar. "Ha! at a moderate computation that old gold plate is worth a hundred thousand pounds; and a hundred thousand pounds at only three per cent in the funds, Burdon, would be three thousand a year. So you see I lose that income by letting this heap of old gold plate lie locked up in those chests.--Now, what would you do with it, if it were yours?"

"Sell it, Sir John, and put it in houses," I said sharply.

"Yes, James Burdon; and a sensible thing to do. But you are a servant, and I'm a baronet; though I don't look one, do I?" he said, holding up his red hands and laughing.

"You always look a gentleman, Sir John," I said; "and that's what you are."

"Please God, I try to be," he said sadly. "But I don't want the money, James; and these are all old family heirlooms that I hold in trust for my life, and have to hand over--bound in honour to do so--to my son.-- Look!" he said, "at the arms and crest of the Boileaus on every piece."

"Boileau, Sir John?"

"Well, Drinkwater, then. We translated the name when we came over to England. There; let's put it all away. It's a regular incubus."

So it was all packed up again in the chests; for he wouldn't let me finish cleaning it, saying it would take a week; and that it was more for the sake of seeing and going over it, than anything, that he had had it out. So we locked it all up again in the plate-room. And it took five waters hot as he could bear 'em to wash his hands; and even then there was some rouge left in the cracks, and in the old signet ring with the coat of arms cut in the stone--same as that on the plate.

I don't know how it was; perhaps I was out of sorts, but from that day I got thinking about gold plate and what Sir John said about its worth. I knew what "incubus" meant, for I went up in the library and looked out the word in the big dictionary; and that plate got to be such an incubus to me that I went up to Sir John one morning and gave him warning.

"But what for?" he said. "Wages?"

"No, Sir John. You're a good master, and her ladyship was a good mistress before she was took up to heaven."

"Hush, man, hush!" he says sharply.

"And it'll break my heart nearly not to see young Master Barclay when he comes back from school."

"Then why do you want to go?"

"Well, Sir John, a good home and good food and good treatment's right enough; but I don't want to be found some morning a-weltering in my gore."

"Now, look here, James Burdon," he says, laughing. "I trust you with the keys of the wine-cellar, and you've been at the sherry."

"You know better than that, Sir John. No, sir. You said that gold plate was an incubus, and such it is, for it's always a-sitting on me, so as I can't sleep o' nights. It's killing me, that's what it is. Some night I shall be murdered, and all that plate taken away. It ain't safe, and it's cruel to a man to ask him to take charge of it."

He did not speak for a few minutes.

"What am I to do, then, Burdon?"

"Some people send their plate to the bank, Sir John."

"Yes," he says; "some people do a great many things that I do not intend to do.--There; I shall not take any notice of what you said."

"But you must, please, Sir John; I couldn't stay like this."

"Be patient for a few days, and I'll have something done to relieve you."

I went down-stairs very uneasy, and Sir John went out; and next day, feeling quite poorly, after waking up ten times in the night, thinking I heard people breaking in, as there'd been a deal of burglary in Bloomsbury about that time, I got up quite thankful I was still alive; and directly after breakfast, the wine-merchant's cart came from Saint James's Street with fifty dozen of sherry, as we really didn't want. Sir John came down and saw to the wine being put in bins; and then he had all the wine brought from the inner cellar into the outer cellar, both being next my pantry, with a door into the passage just at the foot of the kitchen stairs.

"That's a neat job, Burdon," said Sir John, as we stood in the far cellar all among the sawdust, and the place looking dark and damp, with its roof like the vaults of a church, and stone flag floor, but with every bin empty.

"Going to lay down some more wine here, Sir John?" I said; but he didn't answer, only stood with a candle in the arched doorway, which was like a passage six feet long, opening from one cellar into the other. Then he went up-stairs, and I locked up the cellar and put the keys in my drawer.

"He always was eccentric before her ladyship died," I said to myself; "and now he's getting worse."

I saw it again next morning, for Sir John gave orders, sudden-like, for everybody to pack off to the country-house down by Dorking; and of course everybody had to go, cook and housekeeper and all; and just as I was ready to start, I got word to stay.

Sir John went off to his club, and I stayed alone in that old house in Bloomsbury, with the great drops of perspiration dripping off me every time I heard a noise, and feeling sometimes as if I could stand it no longer; but just as it was getting dusk, he came back, and in his short abrupt way, he says: "Now, Burdon, we'll go to work."

I'd no idea what he meant till we went down-stairs, when he had the strong-room door opened and the cellar too and then he made me help him carry the old plate-chests right through my pantry into the far wine-cellar, and range them one after the other along one side.

I wanted to tell him that they would not be so safe there; but I daren't speak, and it was not till what followed that I began to understand; for, as soon as we had gone through the narrow arched passage back to the outer cellar, he laughed, and he says, "Now, we'll get rid of the incubus, Burdon. Fix your light up there, and I'll help."

He did help; and together we got a heap of sawdust and hundreds of empty wine-bottles; and these we built up at the end of the arched entrance between the cellars from floor to ceiling, just as if it had been a wine-bin, till the farther cellar was quite shut off with empty bottles. And then, if he didn't make me move the new sherry that had just come in and treat that the same, building up full bottles in front of the empty ones till the ceiling was reached once more, and the way in to the chests of gold plate shut up with wine-bottles two deep, one stack full, the other empty.

He saw me shake my head, as if I didn't believe in it; and he laughed again in his strange way, and said: "Wait a bit."

Next morning I found he'd given orders, for the men came with a load of bricks and mortar, and they set to work and built up a wall in front of the stacked-up bottles, regularly bricking up the passage, just as if it was a bin of wine that was to be left for so many years to mature; after which the wall was white-washed over, the men went away, and Sir John clapped me on the shoulder. "There, Burdon!" he said; "we've buried the incubus safely. Now you can sleep in peace."

STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

WHY EDWARD GUNNING LEFT.

It's curious how things get forgotten by busy people. In a few weeks I left off thinking about the hiding-place of all that golden plate; and after a time I used to go into that first cellar for wine with my half-dozen basket in one hand, my cellar candlestick in the other, and never once think about there being a farther cellar; while, though there was the strong-room in my pantry with quite a thousand pounds-worth of silver in it--perhaps more--I never fancied anybody would come for that.

Master Barclay came, and went back to school, and Sir John grew more strange; and then an old friend of his died and left one little child, Miss Virginia, and Sir John took her and brought her to the old house in Bloomsbury, and she became--bless her sweet face!--just like his own.

Then, all at once I found that ten years had slipped by, and it set me thinking about being ten years nearer the end, and that the years were rolling on, and some day another butler would sleep in my pantry, while I was sleeping--well, you know where, cold and still--and that then Sir John would be taking his last sleep too, and Master Barclay be, as it says in the Scriptures, reigning in his stead.

And then it was that all in a flash something seemed to say to me: Suppose Sir John has never told his lawyers about that buried gold plate, and left no writing to show where it is. I felt quite startled, and didn't know what to think. As far as I could tell, nobody but Sir John and I knew the secret. Young Master Barclay certainly didn't, or else, when I let him carry the basket for a treat, and went into the cellar to fetch his father's port, he, being a talking, lively, thoughtless boy, would have been sure to say something. His father ought certainly to tell him some day; but suppose the master was taken bad suddenly with apoplexy and died without being able--what then?

I didn't sleep much that night, for once more that gold plate was being an incubus, and I determined to speak to Sir John as an old family servant should, the very next day.

Next day came, and I daren't; and for days and days the incubus seemed to swell and trouble me, till I felt as if I was haunted. But I couldn't make up my mind what to do, till one night, just before going to bed, and then it came like a flash, and I laughed at myself for not thinking of it before. I didn't waste any time, but getting down my ink-bottle and pens, I took a sheet of paper, and wrote as plainly as I could about how Sir John Drinkwater and his butler James Burdon had hidden all the chests of valuable old gold cups and salvers in the inner wine-cellar, where the entrance was bricked-up; and to make all sure, I put down the date as near as I could remember in 1851, and the number of the house, 19 Great Grandon Street, Bloomsbury, because, though it was not likely, Sir John might move, and if that paper was found after I was dead, people might go on a false scent, find nothing, and think I was mad.

I locked that paper up in my old desk, feeling all the while as if I ought to have had it witnessed; but people don't like to put their names to documents unless they know what they're about, and of course I couldn't tell anybody the contents of that.

I felt satisfied as a man should who feels he has done his duty; and perhaps that's what made the time glide away so fast without anything particular happening. Sir John bought the six old houses like ours opposite, and gave twice as much for them as they were worth, because some one was going to build an Institution there, which might very likely prove to be a nuisance.

I don't remember anything else in particular, only that the houses would not let well, because Sir John grew close and refused to spend money in doing them up. But there was the trouble with Edward Gunning, the footman, a clever, good-looking young fellow, who had been apprenticed to a bricklayer and contractor, but took to service instead, he did no good in that; for, in spite of all I could say, he would take more than was good for him, and then Sir John found him out.

So Edward Gunning had to go; and I breathed more freely, and felt less nervous.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

MR BARCLAY THINKS FOR HIMSELF.

So another ten years had slipped away; and the house opposite, which had been empty for two years, was getting in very bad condition--I mean as to paper and paint.

"Nobody will take it as it is, Sir John," the agent said to him in my presence.

"Then it can be left alone," he says, very gruffly. "Good-morning."

"Well, Mr Burdon," said the agent, as I gave him a glass of wine in my pantry, "it's a good thing he's so well off; but it's poison to my mind to see houses lying empty." Which no doubt it was, seeing he had five per cent on the rents of all he let.

Then Mr Barclay spoke to his father, and he had to go out with a flea in his ear; and when, two days later, Miss Virginia said something about the house opposite looking so miserable, and that it was a pity there were no bills up to say it was to let, Sir John flew out at her, and that was the only time I ever heard him speak to her cross.

But he was so sorry for it, that he sent me to the bank with a cheque directly after, and I was to bring back a new fifty-pound note; and I know that was in the letter I had to give Miss Virginia, and orders to have the carriage round, so that she might go shopping.

Now, I'm afraid you'll say that Mr Barclay Drinkwater was right in calling me Polonius, and saying I was as prosy as a college don; but if I don't tell you what brought all the trouble about, how are you to understand what followed? Old men have their own ways; and though I'm not very old, I've got mine, and if I don't tell my story my way, I'm done.

Well, it wasn't a week after Mr Bodkin & Co, the agent, had that glass of wine in the pantry, that he came in all of a bustle, as he always was, just as if he must get everything done before dark, and says he has let the house, if Sir John approves.

Not so easily done as you'd think, for Sir John wasn't, he said, going to have anybody for an opposite neighbour; but the people might come and see him if they liked.

I remember it as well as if it was yesterday. Sir John was in a bad temper with a touch of gout--bin 27--'25 port, being rather an acid wine, but a great favourite of his. Miss Virginia had been crying. The trouble had been about Mr Barclay going away. He'd finished his schooling at college, and was now twenty-seven and a fine strong handsome fellow, as wanted to be off and see the world; but Sir John told him he couldn't spare him.

"No, Bar," he says in my presence, for I was bathing his foot--"if you go away--I know you, you dog--you'll be falling in love with some smooth-faced girl, and then there'll be trouble. You'll stop at home, sir, and eat and drink like a gentleman, and court Virginia like a gentleman; and when she's twenty-one, you'll marry her; and you can both take care of me till I die, and then you can do as you like."

Then Mr Barclay, looking as much like his father as he could with his face turned red, said what he ought not to have said, and refused to marry Miss Virginia; and he flung out of the room; while Miss Virginia-- bless her for an angel!--must have known something of the cause of the trouble--I'm afraid, do you know, it was from me, but I forget--and she was in tears, when there was a knock and ring, and a lady's card was sent in for Sir John: "Miss Adela Mimpriss."

It was about the house; and I had to show her in--a little, slight, elegantly dressed lady of about three-and-twenty, with big dark eyes, and a great deal of wavy hair.

Sir John sent for Mr Barclay and Miss Virginia, to see if they approved of her; and it was settled that she and her three maiden sisters were to have the opposite house; and when the bell rang for me to show her out, Mr Barclay came and took the job out of my hands.

"I'm very glad," I heard him say, "and I hope we shall be the best of neighbours;" and his face was flushed, and he looked very handsome; while, when they shook hands on the door-mat, I could see the bright-eyed thing smiling in his face and looking pleased; and that shaking of the hands took a deal longer than it ought, while she gave him a look that made me think if I'd had a daughter like that, she'd have had bread-and-water for a week.

Then the door was shut, and Mr Barclay stood on the mat, smiling stupid-like, not knowing as I was noticing him; and then he turned sharply round and saw Miss Virginia on the stairs, and his face changed.

"James Burdon," I said to myself, "these are girls and boys no longer, but grown-up folk, and there's the beginning of trouble here."

STORY TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

A LITTLE SKIRMISH.

I didn't believe in the people opposite, in spite of their references being said to be good. You may say that's because of what followed; but it isn't for I didn't like the looks of the stiff elderly Miss Mimprisses; and I didn't like the two forward servants, though they seemed to keep themselves to themselves wonderfully, and no man ever allowed in the house. Worst of all, I didn't like that handsome young Miss Adela, sitting at work over coloured worsted at the dining-room or drawing-room window, for young Mr Barclay was always looking across at her; and though he grew red-faced, my poor Miss Virginia grew every day more pale.

They seemed very strange people over the way, and it was only sometimes on a Sunday that any one at our place caught a glimpse of them, and then one perhaps would come to a window for a few minutes and sit and talk to Miss Adela--one of the elder sisters, I mean; and when I caught sight of them, I used to think that it was no wonder they had taken to dressing so primly and so plain, for they must have given up all hope of getting husbands long before.

Mr Barclay suggested to Sir John twice in my hearing that he should invite his new tenants over to dinner; and--once, in a hesitating way, hinted something about Miss Virginia calling. But Sir John only grunted; while I saw my dear young lady dart such an indignant look at Mr Barclay as made him silent for the rest of the evening, and seem ashamed of what he had said.

I talked about it a good deal to Tom as I sat before my pantry fire of an evening; and he used to leap up in my lap and sit and look up at me with his big eyes, which were as full of knowingness at those times as they were stupid and slit-like at others. He was a great favourite of mine was Tom, and had been ever since I found him, a half-starved kitten in the area, and took him in and fed him till he grew up the fine cat he was.

"There's going to be trouble come of it, Tom," I used to say; and to my mind, the best thing that could have happened for us would have been for over-the-way to have stopped empty; for, instead of things going on smoothly and pleasantly, they got worse every day. Sir John said very little, but he was a man who noticed a great deal. Mr Barclay grew restless and strange, but he never said a word now about going away. While, as for Miss Virginia, she seemed to me to be growing older and more serious in a wonderful way; but when she was spoken to, she had always a pleasant smile and a bright look, though it faded away again directly, just as the sunshine does when there are clouds. She used to pass the greater part of her time reading to Sir John, and she kept his accounts for him and wrote his letters; and one morning as I was clearing away the breakfast things, Mr Barclay being there, reading the paper, Sir John says sharply: "Those people opposite haven't paid their first quarter's rent."

No one spoke for a moment or two, and then in a fidgety sharp way, Mr Barclay says: "Why, it was only due yesterday, father."

"Thank you, sir," says Sir John, in a curiously polite way; "I know that; but it was due yesterday, and it ought to have been paid.--'Ginny, write a note to the Misses Mimpriss with my compliments, and say I shall be obliged by their sending the rent."

Miss Virginia got up and walked across to the writing-table; and I went on very slowly clearing the cloth, for Sir John always treated me as if I was a piece of furniture; but I felt uncomfortable, for it seemed to me that there was going to be a quarrel.

I was right; for as Miss Virginia began to write, Mr Barclay crushed the newspaper up in his hands and said hotly: "Surely, father, you are not going to insult those ladies by asking them for the money the moment it is due."

"Yes, I am, sir," says the old gentleman sharply; "and you mind your own business. When I'm dead, you can collect your rents as you like; while I live, I shall do the same."

Miss Virginia got up quickly and went and laid her hand upon Sir John's breast without saying a word; but her pretty appealing act meant a deal, and the old man took the little white hand in his and kissed it tenderly. "You go and do as I bid you, my pet," he said; "and you, Burdon, wait for the note, take it over, and bring an answer."

"Yes, Sir John," I said quietly; and I heard Miss Virginia give a little sob as she went and sat down and began writing. Then I saw that the trouble was coming, and that there was to be a big quarrel between father and son.

"Look here, father," says Mr Barclay, getting up and walking about the room, "I never interfere with your affairs--"

"I should think not, sir," says the old man, very sarcastic-like.

"But I cannot sit here patiently and see you behave in so rude a way to those four ladies who honour you by being your tenants."