CHAPTER X.

HOW MY LORD RETURNED HOME.

It was on a bright afternoon, a week after the events which have been described, that Lord Fordingbridge's travelling carriage drew up in front of his house, and my lord descended in an extremely bad humour. There was, perhaps, more than one reason why he was not in the most amiable of tempers, the principal one being that the news which he had hoped to receive ere he again made his entrance into London had not come to hand.

All the time that he had been on his Cheshire property--which he had found to be considerably neglected since his father's departure for France--he had been expecting to receive, from one source or another, the information of the arrest of those three enemies of his, about whom he had given information sufficient to bring them to justice. Yet none had come. Daily he had sent to the coach office at Chester for the journals from London, but, when he had perused them, he still failed to find that any of the three had been haled to justice. Nor was there even a description in any of them of the scene at Vauxhall--which, had he found such description, might have been exceedingly pleasant reading. But, in truth, nothing was more unlikely than that he should find it. A fracas at either Ranelagh or the Spring Gardens was by no means likely to be chronicled in either the "London Journal" or the "Craftsman," or any other news-sheet of the period, since in those days the ubiquitous reporter was unknown, or, when he existed, did not consider anything beneath a murder, a state trial, or an execution worthy of his pen. Also the proprietors of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, and similar places of entertainment, took very good care to keep anything unpleasant that happened out of the papers. Nothing short, therefore, of Mr. Jonathan Tyers sending an account of what had occurred in his grounds to the papers of the day with the request that it might be inserted--accompanied, perhaps, by a payment for such insertion--would have led to the publication of the matter, and that the worthy proprietor of the Spring Gardens would do such a thing as this was not to be supposed.

Also, my lord had received no news from his wife, nor her father, which astonished him considerably. For he had supposed that, in about a week's time, the post would bring him a letter full of accusations, reproaches, and injurious epithets from her ladyship, who, he felt sure, would at once connect him with the arrest of the three men--yet, no more from her than from the public prints did he gather one word. So that at last he began to have the worst fears that, after all, the Government had bungled in some way and that the victims had escaped. It was, therefore, in a very ill humour that he again returned to London, cursing inwardly and vehemently at any delay necessitated by the changing of horses, by nights spent at inns on the road, and by the heavy roads themselves; and at St. Albans, where he once more slept, by receiving no visit at all from Captain Morris, to whom he had written saying that he would be there on a certain evening and would be pleased to see him.

Instead, however, he received a visit from another person who had troubled his mind a great deal during the past week or so; a somewhat rough, uncouth-looking fellow, who seemed to have dogged his footsteps perpetually--who had passed him soon after he left Dunstable on his journey down, whom he saw again at Coventry and at Stafford, and who, to his amazement, now strode into the apartment he occupied as hitherto, and stated that he brought a message from the Captain.

"Hand it to me, then," said his lordship, regarding the man as he stood before him in his rough riding cloak and great boots, and recognising him as the fellow who had appeared so often on his journey.

"There is nothing to hand," the other replied. "Only a word-of-mouth message."

"A word-of-mouth message! Indeed! Captain Morris spares me but scant courtesy. Well, what is the message?"

"Only this. The work has failed, and the birds have escaped from the net. That's all."

"Escaped from the net!" his lordship said, sinking back into the deep chair he sat in, and staring at the uncouth messenger. "Escaped from the net! But the particulars, man, the particulars! How has it come about? Are the Government and their underlings a pack of fools and idiots that they let malignant traitors escape thus?"

"Very like, for all I know, or, for the matter of that, care. The captain's one of their underlings, as you call them, and I'm another. Perhaps we're fools and idiots."

"You are another, are you?" said his lordship, looking at him, "another, eh? Pray, sir, is that why you have dogged me into Cheshire and back again as you have done, for I have seen you often? Am I a suspected person that I am followed about thus? Am I, sir?"

"Very like," again replied this stolid individual. "Very like, though I know not. I received my orders at Dunstable to keep you in sight, and I kept you, that's----"

"Leave the room. Go out of my sight at once!" exclaimed Lord Fordingbridge, springing from his seat and advancing toward the man. "Go at once, or the ostler shall be sent for to throw you out. Go!"

When the man had departed, muttering that "fool, or idiot, or both, he'd done his duty, and he didn't care for any nobleman in England, Jacobite or Hanoverian, so long as he done that," the viscount gave himself up to the indulgence of one of those fits, or rather tempests, of passion, which, as a rule, he rarely allowed himself to indulge in, and cursed and swore heartily as he stamped up and down the room for half an hour.

"Everything goes wrong with me," he muttered, as he shook his fist in impotent rage at his own reflection in the great mirrors over the fireplace, "everything, everything! If that infernal captain had only gone to work as he should have done on the information I gave him, they would all have been lodged in gaol by now--two of them doomed to a certain death and the other to a long imprisonment or banishment to the colonies. And now they are fled--are free--safe, while I am far from safe since Elphinston is at large; and am suspected, too, it seems, since, forsooth, that chuckle-headed boor is set to follow me."

This latter thought was, perhaps, as unpleasant a one as any which rose to his mind, since if he were also suspected it might be the case that, while he had denounced the others, they--or probably Archibald Sholto alone--might have denounced him. And at this terrible thought he quaked with fear, for he knew what an array of charges might be brought. Nay, it was the very fear of those charges being brought, combined with his other fear of Elphinston wreaking vengeance on him for having deceived and stolen his promised wife, that had led to his betraying the three men who alone could denounce him. And now they were all free, instead of being in Newgate or the Tower, and he, it seemed, was as much suspected as they!

He tossed about his bed all night, made a wretched breakfast, and then set out for London, determined at all hazards to discover exactly what had happened, or perhaps to find out that nothing had happened. Yet as he went he mused on what his future course should be, and came to at least one determination.

"I will send her ladyship packing," he said, with a sardonic grin. "I have had enough of her and her airs and graces, and she may go to Elphinston or to the devil for aught I care. I have a surprise to spring upon her, a trump card, or, as the late Louis was said to call that card, '_La dernière piece d'or_,' because it always won. And, by Heaven, I'll spring it without mercy!"

In which frame of mind his lordship arrived in front of his town house. But now a new matter of astonishment arose, also a new fuel for his humours; for the house appeared deserted, the blinds were drawn down in all the windows. He could perceive no smoke arising from any chimney, there was no sign of life at all about the place. He bade his manservant get down from beside the coachman and tug lustily at the bell, while all the time that the man was doing so he was fretting and fuming inwardly, and at last was meditating sending for the watch and having the door forced, when it was opened from the inside, and the oldest servant in his establishment, a decrepit, deaf old man, who had acted as caretaker for many years during his and his father's absence abroad, appeared.

"Come here, Luke, come here," his lordship called loudly to him; "come here, I say," and he motioned that he should descend the steps and approach the travelling carriage, from the door of which he was now glaring at him. But, whether from fright or senility, or both combined, the other did not obey him, and only stood shivering and shaking and feebly bowing upon the threshold.

"What devil's game is this?" Fordingbridge muttered to himself as he now sprang out and ran up the steps, after which he grasped the old man by the collar and, dragging him toward him, bawled in his ear question after question as to what cause the present state of the house was owing. But the old fellow only shivered and shook the more, and seemed too paralyzed by his master's violence to do anything but wag his jaws helplessly. Hurling him away, therefore, with no consideration at all for either his age or feebleness, Fordingbridge rushed through the hall ringing a bell that communicated with the kitchens and another with the garrets, calling out the names of male and female servants, and receiving no answer to any of his summons. Then, tired of this at last, he bade his manservant bring in his valises and ordered the travelling carriage off to the stables. But by now the old servitor seemed to have recovered either his breath or his senses somewhat, and coming up to his lordship in a sidling fashion, such as a dog assumes when fearful of a blow if it approaches its master too near, he mumbled that there was no one else in the house but himself.

"So I should suppose," Lord Fordingbridge replied, endeavouring to calm himself and to overcome the gust of passion with which he had once more been seized, "so I should suppose; I have called enough to have waked the dead had there been any here." Then once more regarding the old man with one of his fierce glances, he shouted at him in a voice that penetrated even to his ears, "Where are they all? Where is her ladyship?" in a lower voice. "Where are the servants?"

"Gone, all gone," Luke replied, "all gone. None left but me."

"Where are they gone to?"

The old man flapped his hands up and down once or twice--perhaps he performed the action with a desire to deprecate his master's anger--and looked up beseechingly into his face as though asking pardon for what was no fault of his, then replied:

"Her ladyship has gone away--for good and all, I hear, my lord."

"Ha! Where is she gone to?"

"To Lady Belrose's. I am told. She--she--they--the servants say she will never come back."

The viscount paused a moment--this news had startled even him!--then he muttered, "No, I'll warrant she never shall. This justifies me." And again he continued, still shouting at the old man, so that his valet upstairs must have heard every word he uttered:

"And the servants, where are they?"

"All gone too. They were frightened by the police and the soldiers--"

"The soldiers! What soldiers?"

"They ransacked the house to find Mr. Archibald. But he, too, was gone. That terrified all but me--me it did not frighten. No, no," he went on, assuming a ludicrous appearance of bravery that was almost weird to behold, "me it did not frighten. I remember when, also, the soldiers searched the house for your father, his late lordship with--he! he!--the same re----"

"Silence!" roared Fordingbridge. "How dare you couple my father's name with that fellow? So Mr. Archibald is also gone! But what about the soldiers? The soldiers, I say," raising his voice again to a shriek.

"Ah, the soldiers," Luke repeated. "Yes, yes. The soldiers. Brave soldiers. I had a son once in their regiment, long ago, when Dunmore commanded them; he was wounded at--um----um" and he stopped, terrified by the scowl on Lord Fordingbridge's face.

"What," bawled the latter, "did they do here--in this house? Curse your son and your recollections, too. What did they do here--in my house?"

"They sought for Mr. Archibald--her ladyship being gone forth. But he, too, was out--ho! ho--and--and he never came back. Then the captain--a brave, young lord, they say--said you were known to be fostering a rebel--they called him a rebel Jesuit priest!--that you were denounced from Dunstable, and that you must make your own account with the Government. Then the maids fled, and next the men--they said they owed you no service. Ah! there are no old faithful servants now--or few--very few."

"Go!" said Fordingbridge, briefly--and again his look terrified the poor old creature so, that he slunk off shivering and shaking as before.

Slowly the viscount mounted the stairs to his saloon, or withdrawing room, and when there he cast himself into a chair and brooded on what he had heard.

"Harbouring a rebel--a rebel Jesuit priest," he muttered. "So! so! am I caught in the toils that I myself set? Pardieu, 'twould seem so. I denounce a rebel, and, unfortunately, that rebel lives on me--is housed with me. I never thought of that! It may tell badly for me; worse, too, because I brought him to England in my train. How shall I escape it?" And he sat long in his chair meditating.

"The captain said," he went on, "that I must make my own account with the Government. Ah, yes, yes; why! so indeed I must. And 'tis not hard. Make my account! Why, yes, to be sure. Easy enough. I, having embraced the principles of Hanover, and being now firm in my loyalty to George, do, the better to confound his enemies, shelter in my house one whom I intend to yield up to him. Well! there's no harm in that, but rather loyalty. Otherwise," and he laughed to himself as he spoke, "I might lay myself open to the reproach of being a bad host; of not respecting the sacredness of the guest."

Eased in his mind by this reflection and by the excuse which he had found, as he considered, for appeasing the Government and satisfying it as to his reasons for sheltering a Jesuit plotter, he rose from his seat and wandered into the other rooms of his house, viewing with particular interest and complaisance the one which had been her ladyship's boudoir, or morning-room.

"A pretty nest for so fair a bird," he muttered, as he regarded the Mortlake hangings and lace curtains, the deep roomy lounge, the bright silver tea service, and--as blots upon the other things--bunches of now withered flowers in the vases. "A pretty nest. Yet, forsooth, the silly thing must fall out of it; wander forth to freedom and misery. For they say, who study such frivolities, that caged birds, once released, pine and die even in their freedom. _Soit!_ 'tis better that the bird should escape and die of its own accord than be thrust into the cold open by its master's hand. And that would have happened to your ladyship," and he laughed as he spoke of her, "had you not taken the initiative. My Lady Fordingbridge," uttering the words with emphasis, nay, with unction, "I had done with you. It was time for you to go."

A little clock on the mantelpiece, a masterpiece of Tompion's, chimed forth the hour musically as he spoke; he remembered his father buying it as a present for his mother the year before they fled to France; and turning round to look at it he saw, standing against its face, where it could not fail to be observed, a letter addressed to him. Opening it, he found written the words, "I have left the house and you. I know everything now." That was all; there was no form of address, no superscription. Nothing could be more disdainful, nor, by its brevity, more convincing. And, whatever the schemes the man might have been maturing in his evil mind against the writer, yet that brief, contemptuous note stung him more than a longer, more explanatory one could have done.

"So be it," he said again, "so be it." Then he bade his man come and dress him anew, and afterwards call a hackney coach. And on entering the latter when ready, he ordered the driver to convey him first to the Duke of Newcastle's (the Secretary of State), and later to Lady Belrose's in Hanover-square.

"For, to commence," he muttered, as he drove off, "I must square his grace, and then have one final interview with my dearly beloved Katherine. Newcastle has the reputation of being the biggest fool in England--he should not be difficult to deal with; while as to her--well, she is no fool but yet she shall find her master."