"Greenwood is not the man to waste his time at a lady's apron-strings for nothing."
"Chichester—you do not mean—"
"Oh! no—I mean nothing more than you choose to surmise."
"And what would you have me surmise?"
"I do not suppose," said Chichester, "that you care very much for Lady Cecilia."
"You are well aware of my feelings with regard to her."
"And out of all the money she has had lately—an affluence that you yourself have noticed more than once—she has never assisted you."
"No—never. And I have often puzzled myself to think whence came those supplies."
"You cannot suppose that either Lord or Lady Tremordyn replenish her purse?"
"Yes—I have thought so."
"Oh! very well; you know best;" and Chichester sipped his wine with an affected indifference which was in itself most eloquently significant.
"My dear fellow," said the baronet, after a pause, "I feel convinced that you have got some plan in your head, or else that you know more than you choose to say. In either case, Lady Cecilia is concerned. I have told you that I care not one fig about her—on my honour! Have the kindness, then, to speak without reserve."
"And then you may be offended," said Chichester.
"How absurd! Speak."
"What if I was to tell you that Lady Cecilia—"
"Well?"
"Is Greenwood's mistress!"
"The proof! the proof!" ejaculated the baronet.
"I myself saw them in each other's arms."
Sir Rupert Harborough's countenance grew deadly pale, and his lips quivered. He now revolted from the mere idea of what he had just before wished to be a fact.
"You remember the day that Greenwood called to acquaint us with his success at Rottenborough in March last?" said Chichester, after a pause. "You and I had been practising with the dice and cards; and we went out together."
"I recollect," exclaimed the baronet; "and you returned for the dice-boxes which you had left behind."
"It was upon that occasion. Greenwood followed me out of the drawing-room, and gave me a hundred pounds to keep the secret."
"True! you produced a hundred pounds immediately afterwards; and you said that Greenwood had lent you the amount. Why did you never tell me of this before?"
"The deuce! Is it a pleasant thing to communicate to a friend, Harborough? Besides, it always struck me that the discovery would one day or another be of some use."
"Of use indeed!" ejaculated the baronet. "And Lady Cecilia is Greenwood's mistress! Ah! that explains the restoration of her diamonds, as well as the improved condition of her finances. The false creature!"
"You must admit, Harborough," said Chichester, "that you have never been over attentive to your wife; and if—"
"Nonsense, my good fellow," interrupted the baronet sharply. "That is no excuse for a woman. A man may do what he chooses; but a woman—a wife—"
"Come, come—no moralizing," said Chichester. "It is all your own fault. Not one woman out of fifty would go wrong, if the husband behaved properly. But now that I have told you the secret, think what use you can make of it."
"I cannot see how the circumstance can serve me, without farther proof," remarked the baronet. "Ah! Lady Cecilia—what duplicity! what deceit!"
"Why not search her drawers—her boxes?" said Chichester. "She is absent; no one can interrupt you; and perhaps you may find a letter—"
"Excellent thought!" cried Sir Rupert; and, seizing a candle, he hurried from the room.
Twenty minutes elapsed, during which Mr. Chichester sate drinking his wine as comfortably as if he had done a good action, instead of revealing so fearful a secret to his friend.
At length Sir Rupert Harborough returned to the dining-room.
He was very pale; and there was something ghastly in his countenance, and sinister in the expression of his eyes.
"Well—any news?" inquired Chichester.
"No proof—not a note, not a letter," answered the baronet. "But I have found something," he added, with an hysterical kind of laugh, "that will answer my purpose for the moment better still."
"What is that?" asked his friend.
"Lady Cecilia's diamonds and other trinkets—presents, most likely, from Greenwood—together with ninety pounds in notes and gold."
"Capital!" cried Chichester. "You can now settle with Greenwood."
"Yes—I will pay him his six hundred pounds, renew for the remainder for three or four months, and then devise some plot to obtain undeniable proof of his amour with Lady Cecilia. But when I think of that woman, Chichester—not that she is any thing to me—still she is my wife—"
"Nonsense! It is fortunate for you that I told you of the affair, or else you would never have thought of using her property for the purpose of raising the sum you require."
"Ah! I will be revenged on that Greenwood!" cried Sir Rupert, in whose mind one idea was uppermost, in spite of his depraved and selfish disposition: "I will have the most signal vengeance upon the seducer of my wife! But remember, Chichester—I care nothing for her;—still the outrage—the dishonour—the perfidy! Yes—by God!" he added, dashing his clenched fist upon the table; "I will be avenged!"
"And in the mean time convert the diamonds and jewels into money," said Chichester. "It is only seven o'clock; we have plenty of time for the pawnbroker's."
"Come," cried the baronet, whose manner continued to be excited and irritable; "I am ready."
The two friends emptied their glasses, and took their departure, the baronet having carefully secured about his person the booty he had plundered from his wife. They then bent their steps towards the pawnbroking-establishment of Mr. V——, in the Strand.
What a strange type of all the luxury, dissipation, extravagance, profligacy, misery, ruin, and want, which characterise the various classes of society, is a pawnbroker's shop! It is the emporium whither go the jewels of the aristocrat, the clothes of the mechanic, the ornaments of the actress, and the necessaries of the poor. Genteel profligacy and pining industry seek, at the same place—the one the means for fresh extravagance, the other the wherewith to purchase food to sustain life. Two broad and direct roads branch off from the pawnbroker's shop in different directions; the first leading to the gaming-table, the second to the gin-palace; and then those paths are carried onwards, past those half-way houses of destruction, and converge to one point, at which they meet at last, and whose name is Ruin.
Two working men have been seen standing at the corner of a street, whispering together: at length one has taken off his coat, gone to the pawnbroker's, come out with the proceeds, and accompanied the other to the nearest gin-shop, where they have remained until all the money raised upon the garment was expended. Again, during the absence from home of the hard-working mechanic, his intemperate wife has collected together their few necessaries, carried them to the pawnbroker's, and spent the few shillings, thus procured, on gin. The thief, when he has picked a pocket of a watch, finds a ready means of disposing of it at the pawnbroker's. Hundreds of working-men pledge their Sunday garments regularly every Monday morning, and redeem them again on Saturday night.
Are pawnbrokers' shops a necessary evil? To some extent they are. They afford assistance to those whom some pressing urgence suddenly overtakes, or who are temporarily out of work. But are not the facilities which they thus present to all classes liable