'Jupiter!' he muttered at last, 'what a--a Pactolus I have missed! Three months ago, two months ago, she would have gone on her knees to marry me! And with all that money--Lord! I would have died Bishop of Oxford. It is monstrous! Positively, I am fit to kill myself when I think of it!'
He paused awhile to roll the morsel on the palate of his imagination, and found that the pathos of it almost moved him to tears. But before long he fell from the clouds to more practical matters. The secret was his, but what was he going to do with it? Where make his market of it? One by one he considered all the persons concerned. To begin with, there was her ladyship. But the knowledge did not greatly affect the viscountess, and he did not trust her. He dismissed the thought of applying to her. It was the same with Dunborough; money or no money was all one to him, he would take the girl if he could get her. He was dismissed as equally hopeless. Soane came next; but Sir George either knew the secret, or must know it soon; and though his was a case the tutor pondered long, he discerned no profit he could claim from him. Moreover, he had not much stomach for driving a bargain with the baronet; so in the end Sir George too was set aside.
There remained only the Buona Figliuola--the girl herself. 'I might pay my court to her,' the tutor thought, 'but she would have a spite against me for last night's work, and I doubt I could not do much. To be sure, I might put her on her guard against Dunborough, and trust to her gratitude; but it is ten to one she would not believe me. Or I could let him play his trick--if he is fool enough to put his neck in a noose--and step in and save her at the last moment. Ah!' Mr. Thomasson continued, looking up to the ceiling in a flabby ecstasy of appreciation, 'If I had the courage! That were a game to play indeed, Frederick Thomasson!'
It was, but it was hazardous; and the schemer rose and walked the floor, striving to discover a safer mode of founding his claim. He found none, however; and presently, with a wry face, he took out a letter which he had received on the eve of his departure from Oxford--a letter from a dun, threatening process and arrest. The sum was one which a year's stipend of a fat living would discharge; and until the receipt of the letter the tutor, long familiar with embarrassment, had taken the matter lightly. But the letter was to the point, and meant business--a spunging house and the Fleet; and with the cold shade of the Rules in immediate prospect, Mr. Thomasson saw himself at his wits' end. He thought and thought, and presently despair bred in him a bastard courage.
Buoyed up by this he tried to picture the scene; the lonely road, the carriage, the shrieking girl, the ruffians looking fearfully up and down as they strove to silence her; and himself running to the rescue; as Mr. Burchell ran with the big stick, in Mr. Goldsmith's novel, which he had read a few months before. Then the struggle. He saw himself knocked--well, pushed down; after all, with care, he might play a fine part without much risk. The men might fly either at sight of him, or when he drew nearer and added his shouts to the girl's cries; or--or some one else might come up, by chance or summoned by the uproar! In a minute it would be over; in a minute--and what a rich reward he might reap.
Nevertheless he did not feel sure he would be able to do it. His heart thumped, and his smile grew sickly, and he passed his tongue again and again over his dry lips, as he thought of the venture. But do it or not when the time came, he would at least give himself the chance. He would attend the girl wherever she went, dog her, watch her, hang on her skirts; so, if the thing happened, he would be at hand, and if he had the courage, would save her.
'It should--it should stand me in a thousand!' he muttered, wiping his damp brow, 'and that would put me on my legs.'
He put her gratitude at that; and it was a great sum, a rich bribe. He thought of the money lovingly, and of the feat with trembling, and took his hat and unlocked his door and went downstairs. He spied about him cautiously until he learned that Mr. Dunborough had departed; then he went boldly to the stables, and inquired and found that the gentleman had started for Bristol in a post-chaise. 'In a middling black temper,' the ostler added, 'saving your reverence's presence.'
That ascertained, the tutor needed no more. He knew that Dunborough, on his way to foreign service, had lain ten days in Bristol, whistling for a wind; that he had landed there also on his return, and made--on his own authority--some queer friends there. Bristol, too, was the port for the plantations; a slave-mart under the rose, with the roughest of all the English seatown populations. There were houses at Bristol where crimping was the least of the crimes committed; in the docks, where the great ships, laden with sugar and tobacco, sailed in and out in their seasons, lay sloops and skippers, ready to carry all comers, criminal and victim alike, beyond the reach of the law. The very name gave Mr. Thomasson pause; he could have done with Gretna--which Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act had lately raised to importance--or Berwick, or Harwich, or Dover. But Bristol had a grisly sound. From Marlborough it lay no more than forty miles away by the Chippenham and Marshfield road; a post-chaise and four stout horses might cover the distance in four hours.
He felt, as he sneaked into the house, that the die was cast. The other intended to do it then. And that meant--'Oh, Lord,' he muttered, wiping his brow, 'I shall never dare! If he is there himself, I shall never dare!' As he crawled upstairs he went hot one moment and shivered the next; and did not know whether he was glad or sorry that the chance would be his to take.
Fortunately, on reaching the first floor he remembered that Lady Dunborough had requested him to convey her compliments to Dr. Addington, with an inquiry how Lord Chatham did. The tutor felt that a commonplace interview of this kind would settle his nerves; and having learned the position of Dr. Addington's apartments, he found his way down the snug passage of which we know and knocked at the door. A voice, disagreeably raised, was speaking on the other side of the door, but paused at the sound of his knock. Some one said 'Come in,' and he entered.
He found Dr. Addington standing on the hearth, stiff as a poker, and swelling with dignity. Facing him stood Mr. Fishwick. The attorney, flustered and excited, cast a look at Mr. Thomasson as if his entrance were an added grievance; but that done, went on with his complaint.
'I tell you, sir,' he said, 'I do not understand this. His lordship was able to travel yesterday, and last evening he was well enough to see Sir George Soane.'
'He did not see him,' the physician answered stiffly. There is no class which extends less indulgence to another than the higher grade of professional men to the lower grade. While to Sir George Mr. Fishwick was an odd little man, comic, and not altogether inestimable, to Dr. Addington he was an anathema.
'I said only, sir, that he was well enough to see him,' the lawyer retorted querulously. 'Be that as it may, his lordship was not seriously ill yesterday. To-day I have business of the utmost importance with him, and am willing to wait upon him at any hour. Nevertheless you tell me that I cannot see him to-day, nor to-morrow--'
'Nor in all probability the next day,' the doctor answered grimly.
Mr. Fishwick's voice rose almost to a shriek. 'Nor the next day?' he cried.
'No, nor the next day, so far as I can judge.'
'But I must see him! I tell you, sir, I must see him,' the lawyer ejaculated. 'I have the most important business with him!'
'The most important?'
'The most important!'
'My dear sir,' Dr. Addington said, raising his hand and clearly near the end of his patience, 'my answer is that you shall see him--when he is well enough to be seen, and chooses to see you, and not before! For myself, whether you see him now or never see him, is no business of mine. But it _is_ my business to be sure that his lordship does not risk a life which is of inestimable value to his country.'
'But--but yesterday he was well enough to travel!' murmured the lawyer, somewhat awed. 'I--I do not like this!'