He picked up the branch of candles that stood upon the hall-table, and carried it into his study, and to his desk by the window. Seeing him sit down, and open the ink-standish, Ulysses indicated his sentiments by yawning loudly. “Don’t let me keep you up!” said Mr. Beaumaris, dipping a pen in the standish, and drawing a sheet of paper towards himself.
Ulysses cast himself on the floor with a flop, gave one or two whines, bethought him of a task left undone, and began zealously to clean his forepaws.
Mr. Beaumaris wrote a few rapid lines, dusted his sheet, shook off the sand, and was just about to fold the missive, when he paused. Ulysses looked up hopefully. “Yes, in a minute,” said Mr. Beaumaris. “If he has quite outrun the constable—” He laid clown the paper, drew out a fat pocket-book from his inner pocket, and extracted from it a bill for a hundred pounds. This he folded up in his letter, sealed the whole with a wafer, and directed it. Then he rose, and to Ulysses’ relief indicated that he was now ready to go to bed. Ulysses, who slept every night on the mat outside his door, and regularly, as a matter of form, challenged Painswick’s right to enter that sacred apartment each morning, scampered ahead of him up the stairs. Mr. Beaumaris found his valet awaiting him, his expression a nice mixture of wounded sensibility, devotion to duty, and long-suffering. He gave the sealed letter into his hand. “See that that is delivered to a Mr. Anstey, at the Red Lion, somewhere in the City, tomorrow morning,” he said curtly. “In person!” he added.
XIV
Not for three days did any news of the disaster which had overtaken Bertram reach his sister. She had written to beg him to meet her by the Bath Gate in the Green Park, and had sent the letter by the Penny Post. When he neither appeared at the rendezvous, nor replied to her letter, she began to be seriously alarmed, and was trying to think of a way of visiting the Red Lion without her godmother’s knowledge when Mr. Scunthorpe sent up his card, at three o’clock one afternoon. She desired the butler to show him into the drawing-room, and went down immediately from her bedchamber to receive him.
It did not at once strike her that he was looking preternaturally solemn; she was too eager to learn tidings of Bertram, and went impetuously towards him with her hand held out, exclaiming: “I am so very glad you have called to see me, sir! I have been so much worried about my brother! Have you news of him? Oh, do not tell me he is ill?”
Mr. Scunthorpe bowed, cleared his throat, and grasped her hand spasmodically. In a somewhat throaty voice he replied: “No, ma’am. Oh, no! Not ill, precisely!”
Her eyes eagerly scanned his face. She now perceived that his countenance wore an expression of deep melancholy, and felt immediately sick with apprehension. She managed to say: “Not—not—dead?”
“Well, no, he ain’t dead,” replied Mr. Scunthorpe, but hardly in reassuring tones. “I suppose you might say it ain’t as bad as that. Though, mind you, I wouldn’t say he won’t be dead, if we don’t take care, because when a fellow takes to—But never mind that!”
“Never mind it?” cried Arabella, pale with alarm. “Oh, what can be the matter? Pray, pray tell me instantly!”
Mr. Scunthorpe looked at her uneasily. “Better have some smelling-salts,” he suggested. “No wish to upset a lady. Nasty shock. Daresay you’d like a glass of hartshorn and water. Ring for a servant!”
“No, no, I need nothing! Pray do not! Only put me out of this agony of suspense!” Arabella implored him, clinging with both hands to the back of a chair.
Mr. Scunthorpe cleared his throat again. “Thought it best to come to you,” he said. “Sister. Happy to be of service myself, but at a standstill. Temporary, of course, but there it is. Must tow poor Bertram out of the River Tick!”
“River?” gasped Arabella.
Mr. Scunthorpe perceived that he had been misunderstood. He made haste to rectify this. “No, no, not drowned!” he assured her. “Swallowed a spider!”
“Bertram has swallowed a spider?” Arabella repeated, in a dazed voice.
Mr. Scunthorpe nodded. “That’s it,” he said. “Blown up at Point Non Plus. Poor fellow knocked into horse-nails!”
Arabella’s head was by this time in such a whirl that she was uncertain whether her unfortunate brother had fallen into the river, or had been injured in some explosion, or was, more mildly, suffering from an internal disorder. Her pulse was tumultuous; the most agitating reflections made it impossible for her to speak above a whisper. She managed to utter: “Is he dreadfully hurt? Have they taken him to a hospital?”
“Not a case for a hospital, ma’am,” said Mr. Scunthorpe. “More likely to be screwed up.”
This pronouncement, conjuring up the most horrid vision of a coffin, almost deprived Arabella of her senses. Her eyes started at Mr. Scunthorpe in a look of painful enquiry. “Screwed up?” she repeated faintly.
“The Fleet,” corroborated Mr. Scunthorpe, sadly shaking his head. “Told him how it would be. Wouldn’t listen. Mind, if the thing had come off right, he could have paid down his dust, and no harm done. Trouble was, it didn’t. Very rarely does, if you ask me.”
The gist of this speech, gradually penetrating to Arabella’s understanding, brought some of the colour back to her face. She sank into a chair, her legs trembling violently, and said. “Do you mean he is in debt?”
Mr. Scunthorpe looked at her in mild surprise. “Told you so, ma’am!” he pointed out.
“Good God, how could I possibly guess—? Oh, I have been so afraid that something of the sort must happen! Thank you for coming to me, sir! You did very right!”
Mr. Scunthorpe blushed. “Always happy to be of service!”
“I must go to him!” Arabella said. “Will you be so kind as to escort me? I do not care to take my maid on such an errand, and I think perhaps I should not go alone.”
“No, wouldn’t do at all,” Mr. Scunthorpe agreed. “But better not go, ma’am! Not the thing for you. Delicate female—shabby neighbourhood! Take a message.”
“Nonsense! Do you think I have never been to the City? Only wait until I have fetched a bonnet, and a shawl! We may take a hackney, and be there before Lady Bridlington comes downstairs.”
“Yes, but—Fact is, ma’am, he ain’t at the Red Lion!” said Mr. Scunthorpe, much disturbed.
She had sprung up from her chair, but at this she paused. “Not? But how is this? Why has he left the inn?”
“Couldn’t pay his shot,” explained Mr. Scunthorpe apologetically. “Left his watch. Silly thing to do. Might have come in useful.”
“Oh!” she cried out, horror in her voice. “Is it as bad as that?”
“Worse!” said Mr. Scunthorpe gloomily. “Got queered sporting his blunt on the table. Only hadn’t enough blunt. Took to signing vowels, and ran aground.”
“Gaming!” Arabella breathed, in a shocked voice.
“Faro,” said Mr. Scunthorpe. “Mind, no question of any Greeking transactions! No fuzzing, or handling the concave-suit! Not but what it makes it worse, because a fellow has to be dashed particular in all matters of play and pay, if he goes to the Nonesuch. All the go, I assure you: Corinthian club—best of good ton! They play devilish high there—above my touch!”
“Then it was not you who took him to such a place!”