Pelham — Volume 04

No sooner had he left me than I was accosted by Mr. Goren, a handsome little adventurer, who lived the devil knew how, for the devil seemed to take excellent care of him.

"Poor Blagrave!" said he, eyeing the countenance of that ingenious youth. "He is a strange fellow—he asked me the other day, if I ever read the History of England, and told me there was a great deal in it about his ancestor, a Roman General, in the time of William the Conqueror, called Caractacus. He told me at the last New-market, that he had made up a capital book, and it turned out that he had hedged with such dexterity, that he must lose one thousand pounds, and he might lose two. Well, well," continued Goren, with a sanctified expression; "I would sooner see those real fools here, than the confounded scoundrels, who pillage one under a false appearance. Never, Mr. Pelham, trust to a man at a gaming- house; the honestest look hides the worst sharper! Shall you try your luck to-night?"

"No," said I, "I shall only look on."

Goren sauntered to the table, and sat down next to a rich young man, of the best temper and the worst luck in the world. After a few throws, Goren said to him, "Lord—, do put your money aside—you have so much on the table, that in interferes with mine—and that is really so unpleasant. Suppose you put some of it in your pocket."

Lord—took a handful of notes, and stuffed them carelessly in his coat pocket. Five minutes afterwards I saw Goren insert his hand, empty, in his neighbour's pocket, and bring it out full—and half an hour afterwards he handed over a fifty pound note to the marker, saying, "There, Sir, is my debt to you. God bless me, Lord—, how you have won; I wish you would not leave all your money about—do put it in your pocket with the rest."

Lord—(who had perceived the trick, though he was too indolent to resent it), laughed. "No, no, Goren," said he, "you must let me keep some!"

Goren coloured, and soon after rose. "D—n my luck!" said he, as he passed me. "I wonder I continue to play—but there are such sharpers in the room. Avoid a gaming house, Mr. Pelham, if you wish to live."

"And let live," thought I.

I was just going away, when I heard a loud laugh on the stairs, and immediately afterwards Thornton entered, joking with one of the markers. He did not see me; but approaching the table, drew out the identical twenty pound note I had given him, and asked for change with the air of a millionaire. I did not wait to witness his fortune, good or ill; I cared too little about it. I descended the stairs, and the servant, on opening the door for me, admitted Sir John Tyrrell. "What," I thought, "is the habit still so strong?" We stopped each other, and after a few words of greeting, I went, once more, up stairs with him.

Thornton was playing as eagerly with his small quota as Lord C—with his ten thousands. He nodded with an affected air of familiarity to Tyrrell, who returned his salutation with the most supercilious hauteur; and very soon afterwards the baronet was utterly engrossed by the chances of the game. I had, however, satisfied my curiosity, in ascertaining that there was no longer any intimacy between him and Thornton, and accordingly once more I took my departure.

CHAPTER LVI

The times have been
That when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end—but now they rise again.

    —Macbeth.

It was a strange thing to see a man like Glanville, with costly tastes, luxurious habits, great talents, peculiarly calculated for display, courted by the highest members of the state, admired for his beauty and genius by half the women in London, yet living in the most ascetic seclusion from his kind, and indulging in the darkest and most morbid despondency. No female was ever seen to win even his momentary glance of admiration. All the senses seemed to have lost, for his palate, their customary allurements. He lived among his books, and seemed to make his favourite companions amidst the past. At nearly all hours of the night he was awake and occupied, and at day-break his horse was always brought to his door. He rode alone for several hours, and then, on his return, he was employed till the hour he went to the House, in the affairs and politics of the day. Ever since his debut, he had entered with much constancy into the more leading debates, and his speeches were invariably of the same commanding order which had characterised his first.

It was singular that, in his parliamentary display, as in his ordinary conversation, there were none of the wild and speculative opinions, or the burning enthusiasm of romance, in which the natural inclination of his mind seemed so essentially to delight. His arguments were always remarkable for the soundness of the principles on which they were based, and the logical clearness with which they were expressed. The feverish fervour of his temperament was, it is true, occasionally shown in a remarkable energy of delivery, or a sudden and unexpected burst of the more impetuous powers of oratory; but these were so evidently natural and spontaneous, and so happily adapted to be impressive of the subject, rather than irrelevant from its bearings, that they never displeased even the oldest and coldest cynics and calculators of the House.

It is no uncommon contradiction in human nature (and in Glanville it seemed peculiarly prominent) to find men of imagination and genius gifted with the strongest common sense, for the admonition or benefit of others, even while constantly neglecting to exert it for themselves. He was soon marked out as the most promising and important of all the junior members of the House; and the coldness with which he kept aloof from social intercourse with the party he adopted, only served to increase their respect, though it prevented their affection.

Lady Roseville's attachment to him was scarcely a secret; the celebrity of her name in the world of ton made her least look or action the constant subject of present remark and after conversation; and there were too many moments, even in the watchful publicity of society, when that charming but imprudent person forgot every thing but the romance of her attachment. Glanville seemed not only perfectly untouched by it, but even wholly unconscious of its existence, and preserved invariably, whenever he was forced into the crowd, the same stern, cold, unsympathizing reserve, which made him, at once, an object of universal conversation and dislike.

Three weeks after Glanville's first speech in the House, I called upon him, with a proposal from Lord Dawton. After we had discussed it, we spoke on more familiar topics, and, at last, he mentioned Thornton. It will be observed that we had never conversed respecting that person; nor had Glanville once alluded to our former meetings, or to his disguised appearance and false appellation at Paris. Whatever might be the mystery, it was evidently of a painful nature, and it was not, therefore, for me to allude to it. This day he spoke of Thornton with a tone of indifference.

"The man," he said, "I have known for some time; he was useful to me abroad, and, notwithstanding his character, I rewarded him well for his services. He has since applied to me several times for money, which is spent at the gambling-house as soon as it is obtained. I believe him to be leagued with a gang of sharpers of the lowest description; and I am really unwilling any farther to supply the vicious necessities of himself and his comrades. He is a mean, mercenary rascal, who would scruple at no enormity, provided he was paid for it!"

Glanville paused for a few moments, and then added, while his cheek blushed, and his voice seemed somewhat hesitating and embarrassed—"You remember Mr. Tyrrell, at Paris?"

"Yes," said I—"he is, at present, in London, and—" Glanville started as if he had been shot.

"No, no," he exclaimed, wildly—"he died at Paris, from want—from starvation."

"You are mistaken," said I; "he is now Sir John Tyrrell, and possessed of considerable property. I saw him myself, three weeks ago."

Glanville, laying his hand upon my arm, looked in my face with a long, stern, prying gaze, and his cheek grew more ghastly and livid with every moment. At last he turned, and muttered something between his teeth; and at that moment the door opened, and Thornton was announced. Glanville sprung towards him and seized him by the throat!

"Dog!" he cried, "you have deceived me—Tyrrell lives!"

"Hands off!" cried the gamester, with a savage grin of defiance—"hands off! or, by the Lord that made me, you shall have gripe for gripe!"

"Ho, wretch!" said Glanville, shaking him violently, while his worn and slender, yet still powerful frame, trembled with the excess of his passion; "dost thou dare to threaten me!" and with these words he flung Thornton against the opposite wall with such force, that the blood gushed out of his mouth and nostrils. The gambler rose slowly, and wiping the blood from his face, fixed his malignant and fiery eye upon his aggressor, with an expression of collected hate and vengeance, that made my very blood creep.

"It is not my day now," he said, with a calm, quiet, cold voice, and then, suddenly changing his manner, he approached me with a sort of bow, and made some remark on the weather.

Meanwhile, Glanville had sunk on the sofa, exhausted, less by his late effort than the convulsive passion which had produced it. He rose in a few moments, and said to Thornton, "Pardon my violence; let this pay your bruises;" and he placed a long and apparently well filled purse in Thornton's hand. That veritable philosophe took it with the same air as a dog receives the first caress from the hand which has just chastised him; and feeling the purse between his short, hard fingers, as if to ascertain the soundness of its condition, quietly slid it into his breeches pocket, which he then buttoned with care, and pulling his waistcoat down, as if for further protection to the deposit, he turned towards Glanville, and said, in his usual quaint style of vulgarity—"Least said, Sir Reginald, the soonest mended. Gold is a good plaister for bad bruises. Now, then, your will:—ask and I will answer, unless you think Mr. Pelham un de trop."

I was already at the door, with the intention of leaving the room, when Glanville cried, "Stay, Pelham, I have but one question to ask Mr.

Thornton. Is John Tyrrell still living?"

"He is!" answered Thornton, with a sardonic smile.

"And beyond all want!" resumed Glanville.

"He is!" was the tautological reply.

"Mr. Thornton," said Glanville, with a calm voice, "I have now done with you—you may leave the room!"

Thornton bowed with an air of ironical respect, and obeyed the command.

I turned to look at Glanville. His countenance, always better adapted to a stern, than a soft expression, was perfectly fearful; every line in it seemed dug into a furrow; the brows were bent over his large and flashing eyes with a painful intensity of anger and resolve; his teeth were clenched firmly as if by a vice, and the thin upper lip, which was drawn from them with a bitter curl of scorn, was as white as death. His right hand had closed upon the back of the massy chair, over which his tall nervous frame leant, and was grasping it with an iron force, which it could not support: it snapped beneath his hand like a hazel stick. This accident, slight as it was, recalled him to himself. He apologized with apparent self-possession for his disorder; and, after a few words of fervent and affectionate farewell on my part, I left him to the solitude which I knew he desired.

CHAPTER LVII

While I seemed only intent upon pleasure, I locked in my heart the consciousness and vanity of power; in the levity of the lip, I disguised the knowledge and the workings of the brain; and I looked, as with a gifted eye, upon the mysteries of the hidden depths, while I seemed to float an idler with the herd only upon the surface of the stream.

     —Falkland.

As I walked home, revolving the scene I had witnessed, the words of Tyrrell came into my recollection—viz. that the cause of Glanville's dislike to him had arisen in Tyrrell's greater success in some youthful liaison. In this account I could not see much probability. In the first place, the cause was not sufficient to produce such an effect; and, in the second, there was little likelihood that the young and rich Glanville, possessed of the most various accomplishments, and the most remarkable personal beauty, should be supplanted by a needy spendthrift (as Tyrrell at that time was), of coarse manners, and unpolished mind; with a person not, indeed, unprepossessing, but somewhat touched by time, and never more comparable to Glanville's than that of the Satyr to Hyperion.

While I was meditating over a mystery which excited my curiosity more powerfully than anything, not relating to himself, ought ever to occupy the attention of a wise man, I was accosted by Vincent: the difference in our politics had of late much dissevered us, and when he took my arm, and drew me up Bond-street, I was somewhat surprised at his condescension.

"Listen to me, Pelham," he said; "once more I offer you a settlement in our colony. There will be great changes soon: trust me, so radical a party as that you have adopted can never come in: our's, on the contrary, is no less moderate than liberal. This is the last time of asking; for I know you will soon have exposed your opinions in public more openly than you have yet done, and then it will be too late. At present I hold, with Hudibras, and the ancients, that it is—

"'More honourable far, servare
Civem than slay an adversary.'"

"Alas, Vincent," said I, "I am marked out for slaughter, for you cannot convince me by words, and so, I suppose, you must conquer me by blows. Adieu, this is my way to Lord Dawton's: where are you going?"

"To mount my horse, and join the parca juventus," said Vincent, with a laugh at his own witticism, as we shook hands, and parted.

I grieve much, my beloved reader, that I cannot unfold to thee all the particulars of my political intrigue. I am, by the very share which fell to my lot, bound over to the strictest secrecy, as to its nature, and the characters of the chief agents in its execution. Suffice it to say, that the greater part of my time was, though furtively, employed in a sort of home diplomacy, gratifying alike to the activity of my tastes, and the vanity of my mind; and there were moments when I ventured to grasp in my imagination the highest honours of the state, and the most lucrative offices of power. I had filled Dawton, and his coadjutors, with an exaggerated opinion of my abilities; but I knew well how to sustain it. I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch. Was there a question in political economy debated, mine was the readiest and the clearest reply. Did a period in our constitution become investigated, it was I to whom the duty of expositor was referred. From Madame D'Anville, with whom (though lost as a lover) I constantly corresponded as a friend, I obtained the earliest and most accurate detail of the prospects and manoeuvres of the court in which her life was spent, and in whose more secret offices her husband was employed. I spared no means of extending my knowledge of every the minutest point which could add to the reputation I enjoyed. I made myself acquainted with the individual interests and exact circumstances of all whom it was our object to intimidate or to gain. It was I who brought to the House the younger and idler members, whom no more nominally powerful agent could allure from the ball-room or the gaming-house.

In short, while, by the dignity of my birth, and the independent hauteur of my bearing, I preserved the rank of an equal amongst the highest of the set, I did not scruple to take upon myself the labour and activity of the most subordinate. Dawton declared me his right hand; and, though I knew myself rather his head than his hand, I pretended to feel proud of the appellation. In truth, I only waited for my entree into the House, to fix my eye and grasp upon the very situation that nobleman coveted for himself.