t ciE book: wrfH the iron clasps .t iii[iis2S(WfM!ia7.EW iSSliili misiiwii! CLEMENT LORIMEE; OB, €^t 3C^nnk mitji tjiB 9rnn Cln.sys. A ROMANCE. BY ANGUS B. KEACH. u ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. LONDON : DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STREET. MDCCCXLIX, TO SHIRLEY BROOKS, THE AUTHOB S DEAREST FRIEND, THE FOLLOWING ROMANCE 3Es InstribtK. 'Zj'jL.KJl^Jf^-'^ CONTENTS. Page The First Chapter of the Prologue — The Two Lights 1 The Second Chapter of the Prologue — The Ship- owner AND the Ship-Captain 8 The Third Chapter of the Prologue — The Last Drop OF THE Last Phial 15 Chap. I. — Why Mademoiselle Chateauroux did NOT DANCE AT THE QPERA '26 II. — The Spider IN THE Web 3.'-' III. — The Jockey 44 IV. — The Snake and the Bird 40 V. — The Field against the Favourite 57 VL— The Derby fis VII.— The Losers 75 VIII.— The Fly-by-night 81 IX — An Author in search of a Sibject 91 X. — A Night in THE Streets 97 XL — An Evening at the Opera 104 XII.— The Trap works 117 CONTENTS. Page Chap. XIII. — Squeezing the Dry Sponge 12 i XIV. — The Landlady's Husband l:j-2 XV. — Forming A Continuation of Chapter II. OF THE Prologue. — The Sequel to THE Ship-Owner and the Ship-Captain 137 XVI. — Father AND Son 145 XVII.— The "Flail" Supper 156 XVIII. — How Miners MAY BE Undermined 164 XIX. — The Counterplot begins to work 171 XX. — " Check TO the King " 178 XXI. — The Final Scheme 186 XXII. — The By-Play of the Drama 193 XXIII. — Benosa weaves the Crowning Web 199 XXIV. — The Editorial Sanctum 212 XXV. — The Fly IN the Web 221 XXVL— Life-in-Death 230 XXVII. — The Night Voyage on the River 235 XXVIII. — "Thou shalt not bear False Witness against thy Neighbour " 241 XXIX. — Quiet AND Country Air 247 XXX. — The Book with the Iron Clasps 256 XXXI. — "How say ye, Gentlemen — Guilty or Not Guilty?" 266 XXXII. — The End of the Book with the Iron Clasps 273 The Epilogue 277 LIST OF PLATES. THE BOOK WITH THE lEOX CLASPS . THE SHIP-OWNER AND THE SHIP-CAPTAIN . MAKING THE FAVOURITE SAFE FOR THE DERBY THE WRECK ON THE GOODWIN SANDS THE OPERA-BOX ..... DEBTOR AND CREDITOR MRS. dumpling's ESTABLISHMENT BENOSA AT THE TOMB .... MAKING CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE MISS ESKE CARRIED AWAY DURING HER TRANCE THE ESCAPE ..... THE END OF THE BOOK WITH THE IRON CIASPS Frontispiece. page 15 . 67 . 91 . 113 . 1.30 . 149 . 187 . 22§ . 240 . 2fir> . 276 CLEMENT LOEIMER; OR, THE BOOK WITH THE IRON CLASPS. THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE PROLOGUE. THE TWO LIGHTS. On the night between the 30th of April and the l^t of iSIay, 1610, the moon shone brightly on the town of Antwerp. It lighted up the wide panorama of fertile level land which stretches I'ound that ancient city ; it gleamed upon the broad Scheldt and the white sails which here and there glided upon its waters ; it lit up the Gothic spires and chiselled architraves of many churches ; and it brought into relief against the clear sky the thousand high quaint gavels, with their lofty peaks and rickety-looking projections of carved stone and wood, and little Gothic turrets and pinnacles, which are such striking features in all the old Flemish towns. Our story leads us to the large open place in which the ca- thedral of Antwerp stands. Few people were about, for the deep tones of the bell, swinging far up in that most marvel- lously beautiful of spires, had sounded eleven, and the scat- tered lights, gleaming from high windows, were disappearing one by one, so that when the chimes from the steeple pro- claimed that the night had waned another quarter of an hour, but two were left, and they shone from houses which faced each other. Into the room in which burnt one of these lights the course of our story conducts us. It was a small, low-browed apartment, wainscoted with old and polished oak, and de- corated with coarsely carved mullions and cornices. Migiity B •2'. •.♦•.•. CIJ5MENT LORIMER. beams oftheVaiiie specFes of wood, but black and polished as ebony, stretched across the ceiling, giving the Mhole place an aspect of clumsy, antique sti'ength and ponderous solidity. This apartment was partially lighted by a taper placed in a massive silver candelabrum, which stood upon the broad window-sill, and which threw an uncertain glare into the gloomy shadows which it could not entirely dispel. Tha principal feature of the sombre apartment was an antique and massive bed, whereof the head rose in the fashion of a canopy almost to the ceiling, terminating in pinnacles of quaintly -carved wood, from whence depended masses of heavy and gloomy-looking drapery. On the floor lay a large open box, heavily clamped, and secured with iron bolts. This box was lined with metal, and divided into three com- partments. In one of them Mas arranged a drawer, full of small crystal and silver phials, all of them carefully stoppered and sealed with red wax. The centre compartment of the box was empty ; but upon a small table, drawn close to the bed, lay a book, which, from its size and shape, appeared destined to fill it. This volume was a thick quarto, bound in coarse, rough vellum, without lettering or gilding of any sort, except on the back, whereon were jDrinted the two Italian words " La Vendetta." In the third compartment of the chest was arranged a large compact bundle of papers, tightly tied and labelled in a neat Italian hand and in the Italian language. A chair or two, of ancient and ponderous construction, flung at random about, completed the furniture of the apart- ment. It was occupied by two individuals. One of them, an old man, lay upon the bed, projoped up by a pile of cushions. His companion, who was a youth, stood gazing upon him in an attitude of the deepest reverence. For awhile there was deep silence in the room, and the old man appeared to doze upon his pillow. The youth took the taper and flung the light full upon the face of the sleeper. It Mas an old meagre face, dark and swarthy. A few long grey hairs straggled from beneath a close skull-cap of black velvet, and the chin was clothed with a scantj' and grizzled beard. The old man's features were worn and Masted, but the type of the Italian countenance Mas very visible in the high aquiline nose, and strongly-marked and arched eye- THE TWO LIGHTS. 3 brows. The skin of the forehead and cheeks was seamed with innumerable small lines, such as may be seen in the old portraits of Voltaire; and the whole physiognomy of the man was instinct with an expression of the most exquisitely delicate nervous organisation, and of that subtle, intellec- tual, power which was stamped in the countenance of Ma- chiavelli. The old Italian was dressed in a loose robe of velvet, the folds of which his long horny fingers clutched and twitched at. Suddenly he pressed both his hands to his forehead and withdrew them, wet with cold perspiration. Then his lips moved, and his companion heard him muttering. He bent his head and listened. The old man spoke in a jxifois of Italian used by the inhabitants of the mountain districts in Corsica,. " The Mistral," he murmured, — " the keen wind of the sunny south — the wind of home — I feel it on my cheek — waving my hair — oh, how different from the dank gusts of these northern fens ! Ah, it shakes the olive-grove and the trcUised vines upon the trees, and tosses the bright Medi- terranean waves, till they gleam and sparkle on the white sea-sand. Oh! I am back — I am home — Paolo, Benedetto, your hands — 'tis done — Ha ! yon see the red stain ! — yes ! vengeance is ours — it hath tracked its quarry through many lands — and, at last, it hath swooped upon its prey! Look — look — my arm is red to the elbow — 'tis the heart's blood of the Teuton." " He is raving," said the watcher ; " he will pass away, and leave me but half instructed." Then, bending over the old man, he said, in Genoese Italian, " My father ! " " Who calls?" answered the dying man. " Michael Benosa." The Italian opened his eyes, they were fierce and black, and burning with hot fever. He glared wildly about for a moment, and then clasped his fingers and compressed his lips, as though he were striving by a physical effort to recall his scattered senses. Then the unnatural glare of the fever passed away from his eyes, and he sat for a moment mo- tionless and musing. At length he spoke, — " If I grope and stumble, boy, it is because there hangs over my spirit the darkness of the Valley of the Siiadow of 4 CLKMEXT LORIMER. Death. Therein no man sees clearly how to walk." He paused ; then resumed, " I know I have somewhat to say to you — give me the clue." " The family of the Vandersteiris," said tlie son. "Ah! La vendetta! la vendetta!" exclaimed the Cor- sican, his hands clenching and his eyes gleaming. " Yes, I have yet to give you charges touching that great task — charges which, if they be not in your lifetime fulfilled to the uttermost, you will, in your turn, bequeath to your son, even as 1 now bequeath them to you." "I listen, father," said Michael Benosa. " Stand close to me and hold the lamp to your face, that I may truly see whether you be my son or no." Michael complied, and his father gazed long upon him. He was a slight, but well-made youth, dressed in a sober doublet and cloak. His face bore the same stamp of Italian lineage as did that of his father. Its expression was severe and grave, the eyes lustrous and black, and the skin of the temples already began to exhibit those fine lines, or wrinkles, which appeared to be a distinguishing family feature. " Yes," said the old man, " Monna Doro was honest ; there is none of the northern swamp-blood in your veins." "I am," answered the young man, proudly, — " I am of the race which three times ruled the world, — by Arms, by Arts, and by Faith." " And, therefore, a sure avenger of blood. Look into the night." Michael appeared to understand what he was to look at, for he stepped to tlie lattice, and glanced in the direction of the second light, which, as we have said, shone from a window opposite to the Italian's house. " It still burns," he said. Just at this moment the clock of the cathedral tolled twelve. " His life has entered on its last hour," murmured the Corsican. " Some one trims the lamp, — it flickers," said Michael Benosa, looking earnestly through the window. " They trim it for the last time," said the father; " Erpa is a sure nurse, and she has sure drugs ; when she extin- guishes that lamp, Stephen Vanderstein will bo dead ; and THE TWO LIGHTS. 5 she will extinguish it within the hour. Tlien comes iny turn. When you extinguish the lamp upon that taWe, I shall be dead; and you will extinguish it within the hour." There was a short pause. " Michael ! " exclaimed the old man, " did not the clerk say that tlie grave triumphed over vengeance?" " He did, my father." '' Then he lied ; I shall rot, but my vengeance shall ride onward to its uttermost goal. Fetch me the book upon the table." Michael obeyed. " The Supreme Vendetta has been declared betwixt the families of Raphael Benosa and Stephen Vanderstein. The Fleming knows nought of it — of our customs. No matter; the black wings of Azrael are above his house, and they may not close while thei'e is life beneath the roof-tree, or fire ui)on the hearth. Michael, the Fleming wrought our family unutterable wrong ; what that wrong was, being done in secret, may not, by the laws of the Vendetta, be disclosed until that Vendetta be accomplished. The cause of the feud I have written in this book. If you witness the extermina- tion of the Vanderstein family, you will read it; if not, you must pass tlie volume unread to your successor, for only to him who consummates the vengeance must the cause of that vengeance be known." The youth boMed low and reverently. The old man resumed : " We are not now in our own land, where men think little of the gleam of the poniard or the stroke of the stiletto. These boors of Flanders are slow of hand and chary of blood, except that which the law spills. Let the Vendetta, then, be wrought stealthily and in secret. If the heart be bitter, let the face be smooth. Italian wile to match Flemish bluntness. Cast the net and spread the snare, and watch waril}-, as the fowler, until the bird flutters in the toils. Use cold steel but as a last means. The art of the chemist is more deadly than that of the armourer who forges the blades of Ferrara or gives their temper to the rapiers of Toledo. Drugs, like disease, kill, and no blow struck. See those phials" — pointing to the chest — "they were filled by one to whom was handed down the deadly lore of Pope Alexander VI. and his terrible daughter, — ay, b}' one 6 CLEMENT LORIMER. ■vvlio practised as well as studied his ai't ; and amongst these papers are instructions for the wielder of the drugs, written in the chemist's hand, and signed with his name — Rene, of Florence. But, hark ! words, written or spoken — ay, thoughts — can kill as well as poison or steel ; and poison or steel kills but the body. Let our vengeance be more terrible. Compass to smite the spirit as well as the flesh. Strive that as each Vanderstein leaves the world, he may leave it with a heart broken by woe or a soul hardened in guilt. To me it has been granted but to begin the task. I have struck down Stephen Vanderstein. He leaves three sons and three daugh- ters. Be close on their track. If any of them survive you, your descendants must follow up the work ; and so must it be from father to son, until this, the most terrible Vendetta ever planned by Corsican brain, be accomplished. You see this book. In its pages you — and after you, your children — must enter, each what he has done ; what members of the Vander- stein family he has cut off, until the last of the detested race be purged from the earth. All this you understand, and all this you will do ?" " All this," said Michael Benosa, kneeling, — " all this I understand, and all this will I do." The old Italian placed both his hands on his son's head, and his lips moved silently. Then suddenly adopting a more familiar and conversational tone than he had used in instructing Michael in his terrible mission, the Italian said, — " Give me pen and ink." The youth dipped a pen into ink, and placed it in his father's hand. The old man opened the iron-clasped book at the first vacant page, and held the pen ready to write. " Watch the lamp, Michael. Erpa will soon give the signal." The chimes in the steeple rang half-past twelve. For about five minutes there was silence ; then Michael ex- claimed, — " It is over — the liglit is out ! " Without manifesting any emotion, the Italian wrote in the book the following words : — " The first of May, in the year one thousand six hundred and ten, in the first hour of the day, expired Stephen Van- derstein, the first victim of the vendetta. He died in the THE TWO LIGHTS. 7 vigour of manhood, and the hour of his death was fixed at a crisis in his fortunes when his loss will most probably impo- verish the family. He was killed through the agency of Raphael Benosa, the first executant of the vendetta." The old man then shut up the book, clasped it, and iu obedience to his instructions Michael deposited it in the iron-bound chest, which he secured by shooting the bolts of a series of ponderous locks ; and then placing the key in his bosom, stood gazing on his father. The old Italian had resumed his recumbent posture ; con- vulsive twitches passed over his face, and his breath came in gasps. " Michael — forget not — and — when I — am dead — ex- tinguish the lamp — and watch beside me — in — the — darkness " The young Italian bowed, and felt with his hand his father's extremities. They were already cold. Then the fea- tures of the old man became pinched and blue, and the rattle sounded in his chest. As the son gazed upon the dying father, the chimes pro- claimed a quarter to one. " He said it should be within the hour," the youth mur- mured. Then Michael looked, viith dry, hot eyes, upon the dying. " I cannot weep," he said ; " my destiny and my mission are too great for weakness of body or soul. I must be something more or less than human." At this moment, a change passed over the old man's face which caused Michael to take up the extinguisher of the lamp ; and just ere the clock tolled one, the Flemish sentinel before the Stadthouse, Avho had been idly gazing upon the light in the house of Raphael Benosa, the Italian money- changer, saw it go out. " The withered old atomy is gone to sleep," he muttered. So he had — for ever. 8 CLEMENT LORI.MER. THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE PROLOGUE. THE SHIP-OWNER AND THE SHIP-CAPTAIN. A CENTURY has elapsed since the death of Raphael Benosa. A century to a month, for the breeze which sweeps across the meadows which line the Rhine below Rotter- dam, and makes the weathercocks and vanes upon the trim farm-houses point to the south-east, and rustles along the lines of priggish pollards, and heaves round the sails of lag- ging windmills, and toys and wantons with, and swells into rustling waves, the white canvass of the loosened foretopsail of the substantial American trader the St. Nicholas, — this breeze, we say, is the pleasant breath of the earl}' iNIaj^ Furthermore, the St. Nicholas is riding with her anchor apeak a couple of miles below the Boomjees. The wind favours her; she is but waiting that Captain Schlossejib maj' receive on board one lady passenger, and also take the last instructions of his owners ; after which events the gallant captain anticipates, that, with such a breeze, three hours or so will see the St. Nicholas beyond the Brill, and speeding merrily over the tilting seas of the German Ocean. " Here's the boat at last. Captain Schlossejib," said Jin Karl, the first mate of the St. Nicholas, a good-humoured, open-faced, Dutch-built Dutchman, with flaxen hair and light eyes. "Ay, ay, I see," replied the captain, stopping his im- patient walk along the quarter-deck. " Get the accommo- dation-ladder rigged out, and see to the side-ropes. The owner is bringing our lady-passenger on board himself. Well, he's a polite man, Meinheer Benosa." " And a liberal," said the mate. " Not a shipowwner from the Seine to the Elbe is more beloved of officers and men. He's a prince to sail under. The best pay — the best provisions — the best treatment. Long life and prosperity to the house of Benosa ! " " Of which here comes the head," observed Captain Schlossejib, as a fast-pulling boat, impelled by the labours THE SHIP-OWNER AND THE SHIP-CAI'TAIN. 9 of six sturdy rowers, shot alongside of the St. Nicholas. In the stern-sheets of this boat Mere two ladies, both closelj"- hooded and veiled, and a portly man, dressed like a sub- stantial citizen of Holland. The latter, with very elaborate politeness, assisted the females to mount to the deck of the St. Nicholas, and, following tiiem himself, and taking the hand of one of them (the younger), said, — " This lady. Captain Schlossejib, is your passenger to New York. You Mill be particular in paying to Mademoi- selle Var.derstein the utmost attention so long as she remains on board the ship St. Nicholas, commanded by you." The captain, hat in hand, bowed low to his owner, and nearly as low to the two ladies, who returned the greeting, and then, attended by Jin Karl, proceeded to the cabin, which had been fitted up Avith a due regard to the require- ments of her M'ho for some weeks v as to be its inhabitant. The door of the state-room bolted behind them, the tMO women I'ushed, as with one accord, into each other's ai'ms. " Sister, sister," exclaimed the elder of the two, " we shall never meet again I " and, tearing aside the head-dress of her companion, she smothered her with kisses. '•Hush, my silly Treuchden!" the other said, repaying her sister's embrace fondly, but with calmness ; " hush ! the Atlcintic is broad, but it is not a Styx, that we should not return across it, nor a Lethe, that its waters should Mash aMay the remembrance of each other." " No, no, Louise, M'e shall never forget each other, but I shall never hold you in my arms again I — my heart tells me so. I have hoped against hope; but since our brothei''s death — his death upon the eve of his marriage, upon the A'ery night of that joyous supper at the Lust-Haus of the good Benosa — I have believed that there is a black doom hanging above our family." " IMisfortunes are the lot of all, Treuchden, and they come in troops. What have m'c done that they should be specially billeted upon the Vandersteins ? " " Do not laugh, Louise I Remember our family history : not a Vanderstein has prospered since the death of our ances- tor Stephen, M'ho died so suddenly in AntMcrp a century ago." " Then let us hope," said Louise, " that the curse will 10 CLEMENT LORIMER. lose its strength by lapse of time. If it survive the hundred years, I shall pronounce it a malediction of the most robust constitution and the most hopeless longevity." " Has one of our family," said Treuchden, still pursuing the argument, " died in the ordinary course of nature and at a ripe old age ? Has not misery in its every shape been heaped upon us ? Have we not -wrestled with poverty, and calumny, and contempt? Have we not either died young — died in the bloom and the blush of our hopes — or dragged on a dreary life until we met some fearful or some mysterious end? Tell me not, Louise, Ave are a fated race; — we are doomed to unhappiness ourselves, and we drag into the gulf all who are connected with us," " But, at least," answered the younger sister, catching some portion of the serious mood of her relative, — '• at least these misfortunes have only happened when we lived all toge- ther in Flanders. Now, when we are to be separated — now, when the only three survivors of our race — you, my dear sister, Margaritta, and myself — will shortly be known but by our husbands' names, and live with them apart — you in London, INIargaritta in Paris, and I in America — surely, if there has been a fatality upon our vinited house, it will not pursue the scattered remnants of a broken race." Treuchden shook her head sorrowfully, but, after a mo- ment's pause, added, — " I will bear up, my dear sister ; I will hope for the best ; I will trust that happier daj's may see us re-united. At any rate, I will strive not to darken j'our departure from Europe by what may be, after all, but idle fancies and superstitious forebodings, although springing from (Heaven knows) a series of unheard-of calamities." And the two sisters, after another close embrace, busied themselves in making their little arrangements in tlie cabin. Meantime the owner of the St. Nicholas, Meinheer Be- nosa, attended by the captain and Jin Karl, made a tour of inspection round the ship. The prosperous and kind-looking merchant had a good-natured word for every body on board. " Ha, old Schuytz ! befoi'e the mast still ? We must see whether we cannot give you a push up the stairs of the THE SHIP-OWNER AND THE SHIP-CAPTAIN. Jl quarterdeck after this voyage. Well, Hans, as stout as ever ! It is an everlasting marvel to me how you can go aloft in so many pairs of breeches ! Hey-day, Peterkin ! leaving your young wife to go across the blue water? — but sailors have wives in every port. — Nay, never interrupt, man I I tell no tales. Captain Schlossejib, I hope — duty being duly done — that you do not stint the poor fellows in the articles of tobacco or schnapps. I would not have a seaman who treads a plank over which ilies the private signal of the House of Benosa who could complain of clear pipes or empty goblets." The captain bowed, and the score or so of seamen around raised a hoarse cheer, — " Long live the Benosas, the noblest merchants of the Netherlands ! " The shipowner raised his cocked beaver hat, acknow- ledged the greeting, and then, taking the captain by the arm, led him to the private cabin of the latter, and carefully secured the door. " I have something to say to you. Captain Schlossejib," said Benosa. The sea-captain bowed and listened. " You have sailed south of the line, captain," began the merchant, in a low, even tone, and fixing his black, keen eyes intently upon the browned and battered visage before him, — " j'ou have sailed under many flags?" " Yes," replied the captain, in the same confidential tone of voice — " yes, English, Spanish, Dutch, French, and " And here the speaker hesitated. "Go on, man ! " replied the merchant; — "and another which the men of no nation own, but the men of all nations fear." The ancient pirate fixed a puzzled look upon the mer- chant. " Well, well," continued Benosa, "young blood will be hot, and youth will have its swing." " Aleinheer Benosa," said the captain, "I wish I knew in what intent and with what purpose you speak." " But the laws of nations," resumed Benosa, as if talking to himself, "make but little allowance for such frolics. Dear, dear, the proceeding is summarj' ! Reeve the rope, load the 12 CLEMENT LORIMER. gun, and up goes a choking man to the end of the fore-arm in a wreath of white smoke." Schlossejib made no immediate reply, but his breath came in thick gasps, and the large beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. " Meinheer," he said, speaking with difficulty, and in a hoarse, broken voice, " I have served you well I " "I am aware of it," replied the other; "but you don't know me well. You see, however, the ignorance is not mutual." Again the captain cast a long, inquisitive glance at his owner; but in the calm and handsome features before him, in the depth of the lustrous black eyes, and the quiet smile which curved the lips of Benosa, and which might mean much or nothing, he found little to guide him. " Is the St. Nicholas a good ship?" abruptly inquired the merchant. " As stout as ever swam ! " was the reply. " Fit to go a cruise to the Spanish main, or round the Horn, to look out for a galleon deep with the ingots of the Spaniard ? " "Why," exclaimed Captain Schlossejib, in inexpressible astonishment, — "why, yoxi don't wish to go a-roving?" " Not I ! " replied the merchant ; " but perhaps you do ? "i " Meinheer Benosa," said the captain, " speak to a plain seaman in plain words, and he will give you a plain answer." " A man is sometimes lost overboard on a long voyage ; is he not? ' " Surely," replied the captain ; " life is uncertain upon the land, but more uncertain upon the sea." " And if men drop overboard, women are liable to the same fate?" The sea-captain drew a long breath, and his coarse face assumed an aspect of intelligence. " What would you do in the event of a loss — some such unhappy loss — on board the St. Nicholas ?" " I would," replied Schlossejib, — " I would make an entry of it in the log-book — that is all I could do." "Ah! in this style: — 'June 1st. Lat. so and so. Long, so and so. Steering W.S.W., under all plain sail. Squalls with head sea. Lost overboard,' — what shall we THE SHIP-OWNER AND THE SHIP-CAPTAIN. 13 say? all! for example, — 'lost overboard Mademoiselle Louise Vanderstein, cabin passenger, who, in a sudden lee lurch of the ship, fell accidentally from the quarter-gallery into the sea?' You would enter the occurrence in some such words as these?" '' As near as may be." " Then don't forget the form — nor the example I have given you." " Meinheer Benosa," said Schlossejib, "are you in earnest ?" " It would be a very dull joke if I were not." " I did not know you — I — I never should have imagined — nobody would have imagined " " Stop," said Benosa ; " how many men in Holland, do you think, know you — know the secrets of your soul ?" " Not one, I hope," replied the worthy addressed, '■'• ex- cepting, perhaps, yourself." " And how many in Holland do you think know me?" " Not one, I believe — excepting, perhaps, myself." " Hum ! — your knowledge goes a very little way." " I know more than I did half-an-hour ago." " That may be, and now you shall know more still — you shall know your own fate. You will, winds and seas per- mitting, make your voyage to North America, and thence back to Rotterdam. Off the Brill I shall board you — shall come down to this cabin, and shall ask to see your log-book ; if there be no entry in it such as I have sketched, you shall be denounced as a pirate and a cut-throat, and by your death society will be avenged and the world so far purilied. If, however, there be such an entry in the pages of your log — ■ not a sham one, observe, and there are ways of knowing, — you shall, after you have discharged your cargo, be formally put in possession of this stout ship the St, Nicholas, and shall use her, if it suits j'ou, as a peaceful merchantman, or shall hoist the old flag from her mast-head in the Spanish main or in the track of the Mexican galleons. And now, Captain Schlossejib, you know still more than you did half-an-hour ago." There was a long pause, and both the interlocutors eyed each other keenlv, the face of Benosa wearino; the same 14 CLEMENT LOUIMER. placid smile as before, that of Schlossejib quivering with emotion and wet with perspiration. " I fear," said Benosa, "you would dread the possibility of such an accident in a ship commanded by you." " Accidents," said the worthy captain, " are not of our making ; do all we can, they Mill happen." " Then I may possibl}' find an interesting entry in the log on your return ? " " You will find it." " Good ! then we shall go and look after the ladies ; they must think us quite ungallant, I declare." So saying, Benosa rose and left the cabin. Schlossejib lingered a moment to swallow a large glass of schnapps, and then followed his jiatron. In the main cabin Mas prepared a collation, of which Benosa and the two ladies partook. " When shall we take our next meal together, Louise?" said Treuchden. " Pooh, mademoiselle," said Benosa, " you dread the sea. With a stout ship imder you — and Captain Schlossejib will tell you that the St. Nicholas is as stout a ship as ever swam — you need care no more for the waves of the Atlantic than for the ripples of a horse-pond. Come ! a glass of cham])agne all round, to carouse to the pleasant passage and the safe arrival of Mademoiselle Louise Vanderstein ; and may she find — as I doubt not she will — her betrothed, my trusty and honoured friend, Heinnch Strumfel, ready to fold her in his arms ere the anchor of the St. Nicholas has sunk into the sands of the New World. Come ! is every glass brim- ming? Fair winds for the sails of the St. Nicholas, and good fortune for the hearts which beat beneath them !" Every glass was emptied to the toast except that of Cap- tain Schlossejib, who watched the merchant with a strangely puzzled air. " How ! the captain refuse the pledge ? Off with your wine, man ! — off with it to the last drop, or our fair passenger ■will think 3'ou mean her evil." The captain mechanically swallowed the contents of his glass. At this monent Jin Karl appeared at the cabin-door. r^ .5^ • J i.,f .^^,J THF .S7JIP-01VNKR AND THE SEIP-CAPTAINT THE LAST DROP OF THE LAST PHIAL. 15 " The anchor is at the bows," he said, " and we are moving seaward." So the party went on deck. " Meinheer," whispered Schlossejib to his patron, " has your purpose changed ?" "Captain," was the reply, in the same tone, "has your mainmast fallen ?" Schlossejib took the speaking-trumpet, which the mate handed to him, in silence, looking round as though he were in a dream. The sistei's twined their arms round each other for the last embrace, and Treuchden was lowered weeping into the boat. The merchant prepared to follow her, but paused on the gangway. His eye sought Schlossejib's, and exchanged with him a long, meaning look. Then raising his hat, he said, with a loud voice, using the phraseology of the old bills of lading, " And so God keep the good ship on her destined voyage." Three hours thereafter the St. Nicholas had crossed the Brill, and was standing to the westward. THE THIRD CHAPTER OF THE PROLOGUE. THE LAST DROP OF THE LAST PHIAL. This history must make a second flying leap. The scene of this chapter is in the vicinity of London, and the time the month of May 1810, just a century since the St. Nicholas left the Maas, and two centuries since Raphael Benosa died in his house at Antwerp. London of late years has been well explored and de- scribed, not by mere topographers or parish antiquaries, but by those writers whose fictions present, as in a glass, of more or less distorting powder, the features of society in our own days. Thei'e is one district, however, which has escaped the literary scrutiny, and yet it is not one of the least re- markable. It lies on the eastern and northern outskirts of our city, stretching away beyond Spitalfields. It is neither quite a suburb nor quite the country. It is cut up princi- pally into small strips of garden ground, and in each of these gardens there is a dwelling-house. The humbler class of 16 CLEMENT LORIMER. these mansions are built entirely of the wood of old, broken- up ships. The}' look like tliose deck-cabins which we see in vessels from the Baltic ports, lifted from between the masts, and set down amid cabbages and gooseberry-bushes. You can trace the stains of coarse ship-paint and tar upon these brown, Marped, shrivelled planks. Iron cramps and ring-bolts, once supports for the rigging which towered above them, still stand rustily out from the decaying, splintering wood ; and, half overgrown by rank vegetation, lie around such naval mementoes as broken gun-carriages, rusty cabin- stoves, or staved and splintered water-barrels. Over each of these mansions there generally rises a mast, with cross-trees, and stays, and a vane ; and upon high days and holydays the proprietor hoists a union-jack to the summit, and eyes it witli great complacency, as he drinks his grog and smokes his pipe in the little arbour, whereof the planks have tossed many a stormy night and day upon the ocean. The sea- faring people by whom these amphibious mansions are reared are generally retired skippers and mates of coasting vessels, or small dealers in maritime stuffs, who instinctively keep as near as they can to the water-side and the docks. But houses of a different, though peculiar class, are not wanting. These are generally formal, old brick mansions, with small ■\\'indows and heavy-browed doors, approached by flights of stone steps from the grass-plot which stretches in front. Most of these houses appear to date from the i\g\y and tasteless age of Anne. They are inhabited by old city families, who carry on an old-fashioned business in an old- fashioned way, — plodding, careful folk, who have no West- end visions, sigh for no opera-boxes, intrigue for no entree to exclusive coteries, and dine before the western hemi- sphere has breakfasted. Into a ground-floor parlour in a dwelling of this class our story leads us. The house stands apart, and a high brick wall surrounds both it and the gardens and shrubberies at- taciiing to it. Thus the passenger can only conmiand a view of t!ie upper stories. At the outer gate, at the moment when M'e reunite the tliread of t!ie story, stands a quiet, and by no means dashing brougham. The lirst glance at its unobtrusive panels, and its steady, well-worked horse, would tell the initiated in the wavs and things of town, that he was looking THE LAST DKOP OF THK LAST I'HIAL. 17 zi a doctor's carriage ; and he would guess right. The brougham is the.property of Dr. Gunibey, and Dr. Gunibey is at this moment in the ground-floor parlour, conversing lowly and earnestly with the master of the house. The room was dark and gloomy. Dr. Gumbey sat in the lightest portion of it, and his companion in the darkest. The doctor was a young man, plump and round-faced, with a bald head. It is astonishing the number of doctors who have bald heads ; perhaps they pluck out the hair with tweezers to make them look learned. The master of the house, who sat opposite the doctor, we shall describe pre- sently. " The case of Mrs. Werwold," said Dr. Gumbey, " is absolutely the most unaccountable I ever came across." " She got over her confinement well," remarked the husband, in a low and slightly tremulous tone. " Admirably — admirably; and the boy is positively the finest boy I ever saw in my life. Nothing ails him. But from the hour at which his poor mother ought to have got bette", she has got worse." " But what do the peculiar symptoms denote ? " "Ay, the peculiar symptoms, — just so; there is the puzzle. There are no peculiar symptoms — that is, none other than a gradual wasting away of the vital energy, a gradual absorption of the element of existence. Every indi- vidual organ appears healthy. We can discover no latent di.sease. The effect is palpable to all ; but human science — so far, at least, as we can apply it — can point to no cause." " There is a disease, a well-known disease, I believe, called atrophy ?" " There is ; but here is no atrophy. It is not the flesh which wastes away, but the living principle whicii appeal's to ebb from the flesh. Making the due allowance for her recent condition, Mrs. Werwold looks as well as ever." " Then," said Werwold, in a tone of deep despondency, "there is no hope?" " While there is life, thei'e is hope," replied the doctor. " Hope for the best — prepare for the worst. It is my sad duty to tell you to do so, Mr. W^erwold." There was a long pause. " Werwold," resumed the doctor, " if one could believe c 18 CLEMENT LORIMER. in the trash one reads of the slow poisons of the middle ages — of their marvellous effects, of their blighting influ- ence, of their power of killing, yet leaving, so to speak, no scar, — I say, if one could believe in the idle legends of the drugs in possession of the Borgias and the Medicis, — legends which modern science has utterly put to the rout, — if we could believe in such things, I would say that " "What?" " That Mrs. Werwold had drunk the wine of Cyprus of the Roman, or worn the perfumed gloves of the Florentine." " Or had her image fashioned in wax, and wasted before a slow fire by a New England witch," said the husband, with a sad smile. " True — true," replied the doctor; "fooleries — fooleries all, and I was in the wrong to talk of such nonsense. Well, I wish we were wiser." " But," resumed the husband, " must all means be aban- doned ? " " God forbid ! " said Doctor Gumbey ; " but I talk to you candidly — drugs appear of no use whatever. We must trust more to regimen, and if possible to moral means — labour to keep the patient's spirits up, and promote a health- ful excitement, if we can, in body and mind. Meantime we must keep up strength by generous living and the moderate use of stimulants." " The port wine, then, as before?" said Werwold. " Precisely," replied the doctor, rising, and buttoning his coat. " I shall look in again in the evenitig. Meantime, 1 repeat, labour to keep the patient's spirits up, and for the rest, we can only hope that some turn, some crisis, may take place, and that this mysterious malady may depart as it came." With these words the doctor took his leave. Werwold saw him into his brougham, and then, returning to the par- lour, passed through it into a little room beyond, fitted up as a study or small library, the door of which he locked behind him. In a corner of this a})artment, bricked into the wall, was iw iron safe of massive and ponderous dimensions. Wer- wold opened it by a key hung from his watch-guard. The various shelves were littered with papers, which he cleared away, flinging them carelessly behind him. Then touching THE LAST DROP OF THE LAST PHIAL. 19 a side-spring, there became visible the keyhole of a small inner safe, worked still deeper into the wall, and the door of which swung open between two of the shelves of the outward repository. From this crypt Werwold lugged forth a heavy box, opened it, and took out a small steel casket filled M'ith phials secured by pieces of bladder round the corks, and which he examined one by one. With the exception of the last which he took up, they were all empty. In that one still lay a drop or two of glutinous, transparent fluid. " The last drop of the last phial," he murmured. " The work is nearly done, and I shall know the grand secret." So saying, he placed the phial in his waistcoat- pocket, shut the casket, replaced it in the box, replaced that in its crypt, restored the papers to the shelves of the outward safe, locked it, and passing out through the parlour, as- cended the broad flight of stairs which led to the bedrooms of the house. On his way he encountered a withered old female, dressed in the prim style of the matrons of old Dutch pictures. " Erpa," he said, " the doctor insists upon absolute quiet. I am going to your mistress for awhile. Do not come up or let any one of the other servants intrude until I call;" and he passed on. After pausing for a moment at a door, he entered a chamber. It was the darkened room of an invalid. A portion only of one of the upper shutters was open, and a narrow gleam of sunlight fell upon a table littered with glasses, phials, and the usual appurtenances of a sick-room, and played upon the sombre drapery of the bed. One of the curtains was suspended in massive folds, so as to allow the interior of the bed to be seen. It was occupied by a lady, the patient of Dr. Gumbey, whose case we have just heard stated, and which puzzled the worthy doctor so com- pletely. As Werwold entered, his wife turned her eyes upon him, but did not speak, and he stood a few moments looking at her in silence. Mrs. Werwold, as we have heard, betrayed none of the usual appearances of an invalid rapidly sinking to the grave. She was a mild, meek-expressioned woman, with blue eyes, a delicately white skin, and rich tresses of fair hair. Her features were of the ancient Flemish type, somewhat large and heavy, but with a full, soft, womanly 20 CLEMENT LORIMER. expression. In her eyes alone the sign of the malady was apparent. They were lustrous, but suffused with a pearly- hued fluid, which glazed them, so that the pupils shone with a dimmed glare, as a red-flamed lamp would shine through a thin sheet of falling water. The slightest motion made by the patient shewed her extreme languor. Indeed, she hardly appeared to have strength to stir her hands, which were plump, yet wore a ghastly hue of yellowish white. " Trenchden," said her husband, " the doctor wislies you to continue the wine." A slight movement of the eyes indicated that she heard and was ready to obej'. A cobwebbed bottle, with two long-stalked glasses, lay upon the table, which was drawn to the head of the bed, so as to be concealed by the curtain from the view of the invalid. Werwold filled a glass nearly to the brim with richly- coloured wine, and then, pausing, looked keenly all round. The silence of death was in the room. The sick woman lay with her eyes partially closed — she appeared dozing. Hold- ing the glass tremulously in his hand, Werwold cast upon the sick woman a glance of the bitterest agony. " Oh !" he murmured, " accursed be the race of which I come, and the sentiments in which I have been nursed, which drag me on to fulfil this awful vengeance, even as madness hurries its victim over some ghastly precipice ! But no ! I may not pause ! — there is a fate — a doom in it. If I dream of burning these horrible papers — that horrible book, it seems as tliough the phantoms of my dead fathers rose round me, and gibed and gibbered at the first man who, with Corsican blood in his veins, turned from the behests of a vendetta. No I — no ! — I may go mad, but I must do the bidding of those voices from the grave !" Then pausing? he glanced towards the bed. The invalid had not changed her attitude. He looked steadily at the glass of wine, and then, holding it to the light, permitted the last drop of the last phial to trickle into it. As the two liquids mingled, the rich glow of the generous port seemed for a moment to pale and thin in intensity, and then the dee]) colour reappeared, only a shade darker, and making the liquor appear more turbid and opaque than before. With every muscle in his face strained and swollen, yet THE LAST DROP OF THK. LAST PHIAL. 21 rigid and fixed as iron bars, Werwold approached the bed, and drew back the curtain with one hand, while he hekl the wine in the other. His hands were clammy and damp, but not a nerve quivered in face or finger. " Treuchden, your port." He raised his wife up, and held the glass to her mouth, while she slowly drank the contents; then wiping her lips with a handkerchief which lay upon the bed, he replaced her head upon the pillows. Then he drew aside the curtain, and partially raised the window-blind. The light of the pleasant summer day streamed into the gloomy room, and Werwold placed himself by the foot of the bed, in its broadest glare. " Treuchden," he said, " you are still very ill?" A sad smile was the reply. " You feel this unconquerable lethargy gaining on you ?" She gave the same sad smile again. " Your strength waning, your mind weakening, the very spirit oozing from your body ?" The patient fixed an anxious and inquiring look upon her husband. The tone in which he spoke was very low, but singularly distinct, and though fraught equally with sternness and melancholy, it was neither harsh on the one hand, nor tremulous on the other. " Treuchden," he resumed, " I love you, and I am killing you." She started up. " You ! — my husband ! — you Michael Werwold ! — killing me ?" she gasped. " My name is not Michael Werwold," was the reply, — " my name is Michael Benosa !" The sick woman fell back on the pillows, and pressed her eyes with her hands. "Oh! oh!" she murmured, "it is the delirium come back !" " It is not the delirium come back," said the man ; " when death is at hand the brain clears — it works ever the truer just ere it rests for ever." " Then — then," sobbed the woman, " death is at hand ?" " In the chamber — by your bed !" " Oh !" groaned the patient, " the heavy cui'se of the Vandersteins is on me !" " It is!" 22 CLEMENT LORIMER. '* And you — you — my love — my husband — my sworn protector — the father of my boy — you — what are you?" " Your destroyer, my Treuchden." She glared incredulously at him. " Look at me !" he said. She did. In his face were the features of old Raphael reproduced. The same swarthy, intellectual beauty, the same deeply-set, gleaming eyes, the same fine skin lines, threading, as it were, forehead and cheeks. The complexion was deadly pale, and the expression one of awful determi- nation, toned down by placid, deep-fixed sorrow. " I am not Michael Werwold, the Anglo-Saxon, — I am Michael Benosa, the Italian. I come of a fated race, I am predestined to a fatal end. Ties you can never understand bind me to my awful career. Would — oh, would that I were dead! — but while I live I must do that which I abhor I From that terrible task before me I must never quail — never turn !" Treuchden lay and listened in a species of wandering be- wilderment. The words of her husband rang continuously on her ear, and she strained her weakened faculties to catch their immediate purport, as one by one they were spoken, while the connected sense of his discourse seemed to escape and elude her. " Treucliden," continued the Corsican, " I ask you not to think ill or well of me. I am but the hammer which, held by the strong man, breaks the precious vase, and spills the goodly wine. Listen ! You are on your death-bed — the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. You must die, and I must kill you. There is a fate above all ; I bend to mine, which makes me a murderer. Shrink not from yours, which makes you but a victim. You die and I live, and your lot is happier than mine !" The dying woman spoke not, but clasped her hands in the attitude of prayer. " Yes, yes," continued Benosa, " pray, pray to our com- mon God ! You would not believe me, but I too can pray. The evil that I do is done that it may be as it is written. For two hundred long years the long vengeance has been working — for two hundred long years that vengeance has been ministered by those of my house upon those of yours. THE LAST DROP OF THE LAST PHIAL. 23 It was decreed that the Benosas must exterminate the Van- dersteins. No living man knows the cause of this hereditary enmity. It is written in a book which I possess, but I may not read it until the blood of the Vandersteins is purged from the earth. Now you know why you die — you know my fearful mission, handed down to me by my father, as it was to him by his. To compass that mission I became the husband of the last of the Vandersteins — to fulfil that mission it is by my hand you must die. Treuchden, my heart is as the heart of other men, and I could cherish you, wear you in my bosom, worship at your feet, but I am the tool of a destiny which discerns not until it has run its course. Poor, pale, guiltless victim of a wrath above the wrath of men, make your peace with God, and render up your spirit ! " Treuchden lay for a moment still, her eyes shut, and the nerves of her face twitching and quivering. Then she started up, and stretched her arms out to her husband. " My child I — my boy I " she ejaculated. " You would ask whether the fatality will pursue him ?" She nodded eagerly. " The fatality clings to all in whose veins runs the blood of the Vandersteins, and in your boy's veins runs the blood of the Vandersteins." " And of the Benosas, too," she exclaimed. " Even so," was the answer. ''Monster! you would slay the unconscious infant!" Benosa's face grew dark with suppressed emotion. " Would I could I " he muttered, and then groaned aloud. " He must live to taste how sweet is life, that he may know how bitter is death ! " "Then — then," exclaimed the dying woman, raising herself in bed, the glazed pupils of her eyes dilating, and the beads of cold perspiration which had gathered on her forehead streaming, by the motion, down her face, on which a pale bluish tint began to be visible — " then you, the father, the protector, will be the demon to lure him, your son — your flesh and blood — to ruin, to destruction?" Benosa's face became absolutely awful, as he raised him- self to his full height, and, stretching his clenched hand upwards, said in low, deep tones, "It is so written!" 24 CLEMENT LORIMER. Uttering a low, wailing cry, Treuchden fell back upon the pillows. The bluish tint spread over her face, and became espe- cially visible underneath her shut eyes. Benosa stood with unchanged countenance beholding her. The lips moved — Benosa bent over her — she was praying. He paused for a few moments, and then muttered, "She is speechless ! emotion has aided the effect of the drug. In ten minutes she will be motionless." And, in effect, the movement of the lips began to slacken, and the facial muscles to lose their power, when, stepping to the bell-pull, Benosa rang a loud peal. Erpa speedily answered the summons. " The change is at hand," he said, in a low tone to the attendant. The woman replied by a mute gesture of sorrow and resignation, and they both bent over the dying. For some moments Treuchden appeared to live only in her eyes; the light of existence shone in them still. Minute by minute it paled and dimmed, until nothing of them gleamed but the cold, glazed surface of the eyeballs. Then Erpa placed a filament of down upon the lips ; it remained there until the jaws dropped, and the feather, after floating a moment in the air, settled into the open mouth. That night Benosa locked himself in his study, and, opening the repository in the safe, took from it an ancient, quarto-shaped book, bound in coarse rough vellum, on the back of which was inscribed, in faded gilding, "La Vendetta." The pages were nearly all written on ; and it was remarkable that the writing was in many hands, and traced in ink of dif- ferent colours. The hue of the characters on the earlier pages was jet black, that of those on the latter leaves was a rusty brown. Every body agrees in thinking that they made better ink long ago than in more recent times. In this book Benosa wrote nearly two pages. As he shut it up and clasped it, he murmured, " The last entry but one ! " THE HISTORY. CHAPTER I. WHY MADEMOISELLE CHATE4UROUX DID NOT DANCE AT THE OPERA. Madame Werwold, or Benosa, died in the year 1810, leaving a male infant. Our story commences twenty-three years after that date, and the scene shifts from the east to the west end of London. We are in a room, then, looking over the green vistas of Hyde Park, It is furnished with luxurious magnificence, but with careless absence of harmony and taste. Elizabethan furniture jostles with the gaudy decorations, the meretricious gilding, and allegorical carvings, of the age of Louis Quinze. Vast mirrors gleam upon the walls, extending from the rich cornices to the lusciously soft carpet. Cabinet paintings of great cost are interspersed with vulgar prints of favourite danseuses, coloured portraits of fast -trotting mares, as they appeared performing celebrated matches against time, and ugly representations of ugly bull-dogs and snapping terriers, the property of various gentlemen known and esteemed in the most exclusive circles of the " Fancy." Sofas, couches, causeuses, chairs, armed and unarmed, of every dimension and every pattern, are jumbled together without order or regularity. Costly ornaments, some of them recently broken, Sevres vases, and rich specimens of Bohemian-coloured glass, are strewed on marqueterie tables. Half-a-dozen time-pieces, pointing to half-a-dozen hours, stand about. Valuable classic books are jumbled on shelves with racing calendars, works on the noble art of self-defence. Little Warblers, French novels, and masses of the periodicals of the day. Every where there is the same chaos of things good and bad — things intellectual and trivial — things refined and vulgar; vases of flowers are 26 CLEMKNT LORIMER. placed on open cigar-boxes ; a hunting-whip is flung across a painter's easel ; an open portfolio of memoi'anda and sketches is soaked through by the contents of a spilt bottle of wine ; foils, pencils, musical instruments, single-sticks, lorgnettes, meerschaums, unfinished sketches, watches, piles of carica- tures, pencil-cases, snuff-boxes, cameos, spurs ; all this con- glomeration of objects of taste, sport, ingenuity, and trivi- ality, lies scattered on tables, chairs, on sofas and the floor; whilst in the centre of the apartment — this, part museum, part drawing-room, part study — on a magnificent couch, lined with Utrecht velvet, is stretched supinely out at full length a young man, the proprietor of the room and the house, Clement Lorimer. He wears a morning dress, consisting of a loose, soft, velvet shooting-coat, and his feet are thrust luxuriously into crimson slippers. His features are well cut, frank, and open ; but his cheeks are deadly pale, and there is an air of languid insouciance and lazy indifference apparent in all his motions. By the couch stands, in a respectful attitude, a second in- dividual, an undistinguished-looking personage, decently dressed in black, with large shoes, and a very loosely-tied and ill-washed white neckerchief. His features are strong, harsh, and heavy, the skin coarse and yellow ; but he pos- sesses two small, clear grey eyes, as clammily cold as those of a fish, but as sharp and piercing as those of a cat. " Blane," said Clement Lorimer, " I want money ; I feel an extravagant fit coming on." " Mr. Lorimer," replied the steward, in the sleek voice of a flattering dependant — "Mr. Lorimer need not balk his inclinations. God forbid ! He is in possession of a splendid income." " Derived no one knows whence," murmured the young man. " But as punctually paid as quarter-day comes punctually round," continued the steward. " Ay, therein lies the point," said the master. " Satan may send the money, — 'tis all one to me, so long as the sove- reigns do not turn into gooseberry-leaves." " At least before they are spent," insinuated the steward. *' Blane," replied Lorimer, " there is a strict immorality about you which is absolutely refreshing. You never bore WHY MDLLE. CHATEAUROUX DID NOT DANCE. 27 lie with good advice — you never annoy me with liints or predictions that the unknown source of my income may some day dry up — you never try to curb folly or check extrava- gance. Biane, you are a cold-blooded old rascal, and — and, therefore, I like you." The man to whom this contradictory eulogium was ad- dressed made a movement, which might have been taken either for a bow or shrug. He was accustomed to his mas- ter's particular moods, and appeared either not to understand or to be perfectly indifferent to the tone of suppressed but bitter sarcasm in which the words he had just heard were spoken. " I sometimes think, Blane," continued the young man, " that you know more about me than I do myself." The steward gave an almost imperceptible start. " You have been near me since 1 can remember. You brought me my pocket-money at Eton — you paid my bills at Oxford — you manage my establishment here What are you, Blane, and what am I ?" "I beg your pardon, Mr. Lorimer, for reminding you that you are already perfectly acquainted with the circum- stances which led to my occupying the humble position I do in your household." " Yes," replied Lorimer, " I remember your version of them. You answered an advertisement, you saw the adver- tiser, he prescribed your duties, as regarded me, and you never saw him since." " Never ! " answered the steward. Lorimer looked long and keenly into the face of his servitor. He neither quailed nor flinched before the gaze, but fixed his cold grey eyes coldly and clearly upon his master. Lorimer, who had raised himself upon his elbow, flung his form luxuriously back upon the yielding cushions. He felt himself baffled by the unmoved, phlegmatic being before him. " Then let me have money, Blane ; do you hear ? I give you a forced confidence. If I come down, you follow ; mean- time let us enjoy. 1 dine from home to-day. See that the horses are ready ; and, by the way, has that note been con- veyed to Mademoiselle Chateauroux ? " 28 CLEMKNT LORIMER. Blane bowed. It had been delivered an hour after it was written. " Good ! I am at home to nobody but her. Give orders accordingly." Blane bowed again. "And — ah, yes — there is person from Rundell and Bridge's below ; is there not ? " Yes." " Then send him up at once." And the steward retired. " He's as deep as a well, and as cold as a toad in it," said Lorimer to himself, when he was left alone. "I think he is cheating me — I am sure of it. Pshaw ! never mind, he does it neatly ! All the world's a cheat: those who think them- selves honest mostly cheat themselves ; and those who don't, at all events contrive to cheat the gallows." As the man about town gave murmured utterance to this profoundly ethic remark, the jeweller's emissary entered the apartment. He brought a small morocco case under his arm, which, being opened, exposed a mass of diamonds and jewelled decorations of almost priceless value. Lorimer took the box, and turning himself listlessly round on the sofa, played with his white soft fingers amongst the glittering stones. Presently he selected a gorgeous diamond necklace, and holding it up where a ray of sun-light shot into the room, watched the precious stones gleam and sparkle in the brightness. " Ah," he said, " here is a necklace worthy of a queen ! " " It was the necklace of a queen, sir," said the jeweller. " Ah ? " " Marie Antoinette wore it, sir, at her marriage with the Dauphin," replied the dealer, in the sing-song tone of a show- man exhibiting his wares. "So — vanitas vanitatum! — if the diamonds had not pressed her neck, the steel would not have cut it. Moral — don't wear diamonds — eh?" The jeweller shuffled with his feet, smiled, bowed, unbut- toned a waistcoat button, and then fastened it again. It was a very good piece of pantomime reply, signifying, " I ilon't understand a word you say." WHY MDLLE. CHATEAUROUX DID NOT DANCE. 29 " Well," continued Loriraer, — "well, how much for this glittering vanity of Marie Antoinette ?" The jeweller named a very large sum. " Tolerably fair for crystallised charcoal. But you lapidaries ought to take care of the chemists." The emissary of Rundell and Bridge went through his pantomime performance again. His notion of a chemist was made up of three green bottles in the windows, black draught, and a shop half open on Sundays. He did not see what that had to do with jewellers. " Take care ; the chemists will find out how to make diamonds from charcoal." "Have they turned charcoal into diamonds, sir?" asked the jeweller. " Not exactly. But they have done a thing nearly as clever. They have turned diamonds into charcoal." " Ah !" murmured the jeweller, in a tone which shewed that the clev^erness of the feat did not strike him at all. "And now," continued Lorimer, "leave me these pieces of crystallised carbon, and see my steward. He will con- clude the transaction." The man bowed, packed up his trinkets, and retired. Lorimer flung an embroidered handkerchief carelessly over the diamond necklace, and opened a morning paper which lay damp from the press upon the table. "Ah !" he murmured, looking at the sheet, "to-night will be performed Rossini's Grand Opera Seria of ' Semiramide.' After which, for the tenth time, the new ballet d'action, called ' La Reine des Feu FoUets.' The character of ' La Reine,' by Mademoiselle Fanny Chateauroux. Ah, good," he continued, "that remains to be seen. I think the Favo- ritta loves me sufficiently not to mind getting into a little hot water for my sake. At all events I must dress, — she will be here in a few minutes." And accordingly, while Anatole, Lorimer's valet, was arranging the tie of his master's cravat, a dark brougham stopped at the door, and a lady, its occupant, skipped gaily upstairs. She was a little, slightly-formed woman, wearing a high, tight-fitting dress, disposed in perpendicular folds from the neck to the waist, where it was lost in the drapery of a splendid cashmere shawl, which, swathed lightly round the 30 CLEMENT LORIMER. person above the girdle, hung in massive folds over the lower part of the wearer's figure. The face of the visitor was essentially French in contour and complexion. Its form was oval, its colour a sallow olive ; the roughened skin of the cheek told its tale of cosmetics, and the dark circles traced beneath the eyes spoke of late hours and a life of feverish excitement. Alt reste, the forehead was low, the lips and nose commonplace, and the eyes deep-set, coal-black, a!id lending, by their quick burning glances, an expression of acute, passionate intellect to the whole face. The visitor flung herself on the sofa, and when Lorimer appeared smiled, pouted, and held him out a finger. " Me voild, Clement" she said. "Our compact, Favoritta," replied the young man. " English in England." The lady pouted her lip again. " But you speak French, mon Dieu ! You speak French well enough." This was said with a marked foreign accent, but with per- fect fluency. " It fatigues me, Favoritta, and I hate to be fatigued." '■^ Dame! — have your own way." " Yes, it is so pleasant." The Frenchwoman looked at him with a meaning smile. "You won't have it longer than I can help," she said in the bottom of her heart. And to get to the bottom of tiiat heart you had to dive deep. There was a pause, broken by the lady resuming, — "You will be at the theatre to-night?" " No." " Not when I dance?" "You don't dance." " Ah, parhleu! (I like moyen-oge oaths!) Look here," and she took up the newspaper. "See — 'Grand Ballet d'Action. La Reine, by Mademoiselle Chateauroux.' " " Yes ; but one mustn't believe all one sees in print. You don't dance at the opera to-night; because after dining at Richmond it would be a bore." " But I must dance ! — Ventre Saint Gris ! " " Must ! There are two classes of people in the world to whom 'must' has no meaning; the one class consists of despotic monarchs, and the other oi premieres danseuses." WHY MDLLE. CHATEAUROUX DID NOT DANCE. 31 But if I don't dance, there will be an uproar ? " Well, let there be an uproar." " The people will tear up the benches." " Well, let them tear up the benches." Corbleu ! the manager will be ruined." " Well, let the manager be ruined. What have uproars, or broken benches, or ruined managers, to do with it? I say you dine with me. Is it not so?" The dancer looked fixedly at Loriraer. " No, Clement," she said, " it is impossible." "The fact is," continued the other, as though he had not heard the last remark, — " the fact is, I wished to see how this bauble would become you ;" and he snatched the handkerchief off the necklace. The diamonds and Mademoiselle Chateau- roux's eyes sparkled together, as though trying to out-gleam each other. " Will you wear it at Richmond ? " asked Lorimer. The opera-dancer looked in his face. Doubtless there was meaning in the look ; for Lorimer rose, rung a small silver bell, and said to the footman who answered the sum- mons, " Step down to Mount Street. Give my compliments to Dr. Gumbey, and say I should be glad to see him." " Who dines at Richmond ? " asked Mademoiselle Cha- teauroux. " Clever people, eh ? I hate fools." " Oh ! only Sir Harrowby Trumps " "Trumps, — ah Men ! Yes — he is clever — he lives on his wife's soprano. Ordinary people can't do these things. Yes, he is clever. Well ?" " And Captain De Witz " " Ob, he lives on nothing at all. He is cleverer still. He spends five thousand a-year. He has nothing, and nobody ever saw him work, or beg, or steal. Corbleu! " "No. I'll answer for the two former; and as for the latter, why, charity covers a multitude of sins, Favoritta." " Yes, but whose sins?" " Oh, in this case, those of Captain De Witz." There was a thundering knock at the door. " Here is the chei' docteur" said the dancer. " What shall I be ill with, Lorimer ? " " Oh, mon amie, as if I would force your inclinations I Anything you like, from cholera to chilblains." 32 CLEMENT LORIMER. Mademoiselle Cliateaiiroux drew her foot upon the sofa, flung her shawl round her, and assumed a languishing, invalid air. " I look like a patient, eh?" she asked. " Hush I you are one." The door opened, and Dr. Gumbey entered. We have seen the doctor twenty-three years ago. He lived in the east then, but since, he had, like other wise men, come to the west. He was only a doctor once, but now he was a doctor and a courtier, and the queens to whom he paid his homage were the deities of the coulisse. An accident — with which we have here nothing to do — introduced the doctor to this new circle of society and practice. He stumbled about in it clum- sily enough at first ; but gradually he found his way, and soon began to feel like a puppy after the ninth daj'. His eyes were opened, and he saw a pleasant land before him. Now Dr. Gumbey had conscience and tact. His Tact told him that if he struck into the path which lay open to him, he might as well fling Conscience out of the window ; and Con- science suggested that if he chose this path. Tact would become but a rascally guide. The doctor hesitated some time, then chose — Tact; and so passed from the docks to the squares. The twenty-three years had flown lightly over Dr. Gumbey, only gracefully dyeing his whiskers, and padding his chest and his calves as they went by. He was the smoothest-faced doctor in town. He came into a room as softly as a ghost or a waiter, and his words flowed forth as unctuously as castor- oil, and without the nasty flavour. " Doctor," said Lorimer, "you see a patient." Dr. Gumbey bowed gracefully to the danseuse, then cast a rapid glance from her face to Lorimer's. He saw in an instant how the land lay. "What! — bless me! — laid up! Oh, dear, dear ! this is a sad business ;" and he approached the sofa. " So sudden, too," said Lorimer, with a half-perceptible smile. " And what is it ? — what is wrong ? — what ails us ? — eh ? '" " Oh, doctor," murmured the sick one, " I feel a — a " and she hesitated. " To be sure," said the man of medicine, — " to be sure; but we must not be discouraged. How is the pulse ? ' WHY MDLLE. CHATEAUBOUX DID NOT DANCE. 33 " Fast and febrile, I should saj'," observed Lorinier. " \''ery odd," said the doctor; " but it is fast and febrile, now." " Ah, not far from one hundred and twenty ? " inquired Lorinier, hardly able to keep grave. " Not far," I'eplied the complaisant Gumbey ; " one hundred and seventeen." " That denotes fever?" said Lorinier. The patient caught her cue, tossed restlessly, and flung her arms about, as though seeking for coolness. " And you see fever is there," remarked the doctor. " Is my face flushed ?" murmured the invalid. " Terribly," said Lorimer. " Awfully," said Gumbey, *' Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! and I have to dance to-night." " You must not, I am sure, my dear doctor, hear of such a thing as her dancing to-night ? " questioned Lorimer. Dr. Gumbey looked steadily into the faces of both, and then said, — " Decidedly not." " Bravo !" exclaimed Lorimer. " Get up, Favoritta^ ihe farce is played." " Farce, sir !" said Dr. Gumbey. "1 do not understand you." " Pshaw ! doctor — it's all very right, of course, with the public; but betwixt us three " " Well, sir," replied the doctor, staring point blank in Loriraer's face, and I'epeating his words, with long pauses between each, — "well, sir — betwixt — us — three?" " Why," stammered Lorimer, looking from the face of Mademoiselle Chateauroux to that of Dr. Gumbe^s — " why, I thought that — this — this sort of thing would be But, pshaw ! manage it your own way. Here, I'll look as grave as an owl." " I see nothing to laugh at, for my own part," said Dr. Gumbey, — "nothing to laugh at in the medical adviser of a lady suftering from severe febrile symptoms interposing to prevent her from taking violent exercise." For an instant Lorimer thought that Chateauroux was actually ill Mithout either she or himself having been aware of it. Then dismissing the idea as quickly as it had arisen, D 34 CLEMENT LORIMER. he stood watching the placid face of the doctor, with its cahn, unconscious expression and stereotyped smile. The features of the Sphynx were not more immovably tranquil. " Come," said Lorimer to himself, — " come, who says we have no great actors ? " " But, doctor," lisped the dancer, " there must be a cei'ti- ficate, the management is — diable ! — so suspicious." The doctor bowed, took pen, ink, and paper, and wrote as follows : — '' London, the 21st of May, 1832. " As the medical adviser of Mademoiselle Chateauroux, I hereby certify that she is labouring under a smart febrile attack, and wholly incapable of fulfilling the duties of her profession. "John Gumbey, M.D. F.R.C.S." " And the treatment ?" inquired Lorimer. " Rest," said the doctor. " A little country air " began the invalid. " In that case," replied the doctor, " care must be taken of cold. I should recommend a veil — a close veil," he added, with emphasis. " Ah, yes, I understand," observed Lorimer, with a significant gesture. " Sir ! " said Dr. Gumbey, putting on the face of the Sphynx again. " Good !" said Lorimer, "I forgot;" adding aside, "Con- found the fellow, how well he docs it ! " " I shall do myself the pleasure of calling at the residence of mademoiselle to-morrow, when I hope to find her better, if not, indeed, quite well. Good morning." And Dr. Gumbey bowed himself out as noiselessly as he had entered. As the door closed behind him. Mademoiselle Chateau- roux sprung from the sofa, caught up her shawl, and wreath- ing it into a scarf, flung herself into the attitude in which she graced the print-shop windows, and in which so many of her admirers lioped to see her that night. Then gaily bounding round the room with a wild, quivering, leaping motion, Avhich every moment deceived the eye, and made it expect to see the dancer fly one way when she sprung another, Lorimer recognised the marvellous ^^or* in which the Queen of the WHY MDLLE. CHATEAUROUX DID NOT DANCE. 35 Jack-o'-lanterJis led astray the Wandering Prince of the ballet. " Very nice, indeed," he said ; " but not so good as Dr. Gunibey." Then ringing the bell, Blaue appeared. '•' This letter to the opera at eight o'clock." And he handed the doctor's certificate, duly addressed. " And now, the cab to the door !" " The cab I — Ventre Saint Dieu ! you forget — the cold air." " True; the doctor was right — the carriage." Blane bowed, and in half an hour the carriage, containing Lorimer and La Favoritta, as he called her, rolled away. Meantime Blane walked eastwardly. He was charged with one letter to be delivered at the Opera; he handed iu two. The dinner at Richmond was a gay and a protracted one. The sun had set behind Windsor castle, and a thin grey mist had risen from the river, and floated like a gauze veil over the vast panorama of wood and field, copse and meadow, which diners at the Star and Garter love to look upon : the long dim twilight of the summer-time was deepening into calm night, and star after star was coming twinklingly forth, and still the party lingered jo5''ously at the board. Sir Har- rowby Trumps had retailed all the freshest scandal of town. Captain De Witz, who had more imagination, had invented a huge stock of strongly confirmatory and exceedingly- piquant facts ; and Mademoiselle Chateauroux, installed in an easy chair by the open window, had been as saucily witty as any of them. Lorimer leant luxuriously back, imbibed the aroma of the claret, listened, laughed, occasionally threw in a careless sentence of sarcastic inference, or playful yet biting commentary. He was in a mood which he loved. He Avas allowing himself to be amused. In his heart — or rather iu his brain — he despised the people who made up his entertain- ment ; but they were useful for the moment. They made him smile ; they kept him from thinking how slowly the hours went by ; they kept him from thinking at all. " Ah ! " said Sir Harrowby Trumps, " I wonder what they're doing at the Opera this moment?" " Yawning," replied De Witz. " Semiramide is not over yet. Rossini's serious operas are fearful things." 36 CLEMENT I.OIUMER. •• They may be opening their mouths with weariness be- fore the curtain, but they're opening them with liorror be- hind. No baUet. No Reine de l\u FoUetji!"' *■' Afiflpos. Favoritta, Iiow goes the severe febrile attack ?" inquired Lorinier. Mademoiselle Cliateaiuoux twitched a handful of exotic flowei"? from the china vase in the centre of the table, and tlung herself luxuriously on the rich soft cushions of a sofa. " An invalid is privileged," she laughed. " Has the fever made my eyes bright ? " " Very bright," responded Lorimer : '• the fever cr the champagne?"' " Libeller I " said the dancer, tiiiiging a canielia at him. It fell on the earjun. ami De Wiiz. bowing for permission, stuck it in his buttou-liole. There was a moment's pause. ** We are getting flat.'' drawled Lorimer. " I wish some- thing funny or something dreadful would happen. " At that moment a waiter tlung the door open, and pro- claimed, — " Mr. Grogrum I '" Mr. Grogrum was the ir/iprt\