CHAPTER XLIV.

In his new circumstances Bagot was, of course, a very different personage from the Colonel Lee known to tradesmen and money-lenders of old. There was no talk now of arresting him for small debts, no hesitation in complying with his orders. The Jews, bill-brokers, and other accommodating persons who had lately been open-mouthed against him, now offered him unlimited credit, of which he did not fail to avail himself. His creditor, Mr Dubbley, seeing the very different position the Colonel would now occupy at the Heronry, and alive to the impolicy of offending so important a neighbour, stopt all proceedings against him, and, with the most abject apologies and assurances of regard, entreated him to take his own leisure for the payment of the debt. Apparently satisfied with these advantages, the Colonel showed no eagerness to take upon him either the dignity or the emoluments that had now devolved on him in the succession of inheritance.

The first lawyers in the kingdom were retained for him and Seager. A considerable sum was placed at the disposal of the latter, who was to employ it either in bribing that very important witness, Jim the groom, who had charge of Goshawk, to perjure himself, or in getting him to abscond. As he proved tractable, however, and agreed, for a sum which he named, to swear anything that the gentlemen might wish, it was resolved to produce him; and Seager was very sanguine of a favourable result.

In the mean time Bagot, anxious and gloomy, kept almost entirely in his lodgings, and seldom spoke to anybody except on business. He did not know what reports might be abroad about the coming trial; he did not know how his associates would look upon him; and he feared at present to put the matter to proof by going among them. This line of conduct Seager thought highly impolitic, and told him so. “Put a good face on the matter,” he said. “Go down to the club—play billiards—go to the opera. If you go sneaking about with a hangdog face, as if you didn’t dare show yourself, people will bring you in guilty before the trial, and the legal acquittal will hardly serve to set you right again.”

So Bagot suffered himself to be persuaded, and went down to his club. Here he had been, in days of yore, a prominent character, and had enjoyed an extensive popularity among the members. He formed a sort of connecting link between the fogies and the youngsters; his experience allying him with the one class, his tastes and habits with the other. Here he might formerly often have been seen entertaining a knot of immoral old gentlemen with jokes improper for publication, or the centre of an admiring circle of fledglings of the sporting world, who reverenced him as an old bird of great experience and sagacity.

With doubtful and anxious feelings, he now revisited the scene of his former glory. Putting on as composed a face as possible, he went up-stairs and entered the library. There were several people in it whom he knew. One well-known man-about-town, with whom the Colonel was rather intimate, was seated opposite the door reading a newspaper, and, as Bagot could have sworn, fixed his eye on him as he entered, but it was instantaneously dropt on the paper. Another member—an old gentleman who was strongly suspected of a happy knack of turning up honours at critical movements of the game of whist—looked round at his entrance, and the Colonel advanced to greet him, in perfect confidence that he, at any rate, was not a likely person to cast the first stone at him; but Bagot was mistaken. The old gentleman shifted his chair so as to place his back towards Bagot, with a loud snort of virtuous indignation, and, leaning forward, whispered to a neighbour some hurried words, of which Bagot could distinguish—“Deuced bad taste!—don’t you think so?”

Crimson with rage and shame, Bagot bent down over a newspaper to recover himself, and fumbled with trembling hands at his eye-glasses. He heard a step behind him presently, but he dared not look up.

“Lee, my boy, how are you?” said a stout hearty man about fifty, slapping the Colonel on the shoulder. “I’ve just come back from a tour, and the first thing I saw in the paper was about you—about your”—the stout gentleman stopt to sneeze, which he did four times, with terrible convulsions of face and figure, during which Bagot was in horrible suspense, while every ear in the room was pricked up—“about your good fortune,” said the stout gentleman, after he had blown and wiped his sonorous nose as carefully as if it were some delicate musical instrument that he was going to put by in its case. “I congratulate you with all my heart. Fine property, I’m told. Just wait while I ring the bell, and we’ll have a chat together.”

He went to the bell and rung it; but, on his way back to Bagot, he was stopped by a friend who had entered the library with him, and who now drew him aside. Bagot stole a glance over his paper at them. He felt they were talking about him. He heard his stout friend say—“God bless me, who would have thought it!” and he perceived that, instead of rejoining him, according to promise, he took a chair at the farther end of the room.

Bagot still kept his own seat a little while, but he could not long endure his position. He fancied every one was looking at him, though, when, with this impression strong on him, he glared defiance around, every eye was averted. He wished—he only wished—that some one would offer him some gross tangible insult, that he might relieve himself by an outburst—that he might hurl his scorn and defiance at them and the whole world.

No one, however, seemed likely to oblige him with an opportunity of this kind, and, after a minute or two, Bagot rose, and, with as much composure as he could command, quitted the room and the house. As he walked—in no happy frame of mind with himself, with the world, or with Seager, whose advice had entailed upon him this mortification—towards his lodgings, along one of the small streets near St James’s, he saw some one wave his hand to him, in a friendly manner, from the opposite side of the way. Bagot was too short-sighted to recognise this acquaintance; but, seeing him prepare to cross the road to him, and reflecting that he could not afford to drop any acquaintances just then, when all seemed deserting him, he stopped to see who it was.

Mr Jack Sharpe, the person who now drew near, had been intended for the Church, but happening to be fast in everything except in his progress in the different branches of university learning, in which he was particularly slow, he never arrived at the dignity of orders. He had formerly moved in the same circle as Bagot, but had lost his footing there, in consequence of strong suspicions of dishonourable conduct on the turf. These seemed the more likely to be just, as he had never sought to rebut the charge against him; and it was rumoured that, since the occurrence, he had allied himself—taking, at the same time, no great precautions for secresy—with a certain swindling confederacy. Therefore Bagot had, when last in town, in all the might and majesty of conscious integrity, avoided Mr Jack Sharpe, sternly repelled all his attempts to renew their acquaintance, and returned his greetings, when they chanced to meet, with the most chilling and formal bows. Sharpe appeared to think that late circumstances had bridged over the gulf between them, for he not only saluted Bagot with unwonted familiarity, but took his hand. The Colonel disengaged it, and, intrenching himself behind his dignity, endeavoured to pass on. Jack Sharpe, nothing daunted, walked cheerfully beside him.

“Well, Colonel, how goes the trial?” asked Mr Sharpe, who had managed, notwithstanding his downfall, to preserve the appearance and manners of a gentleman. “You’ll get a verdict, I hope.”

The Colonel inclined his head stiffly.

“Well, I hope so,” said Jack Sharpe. “It was a deuced clever thing, from what I hear of it, and deserves success; and my opinion of the cleverness of the thing will be exactly the same, whether you and Seager get an acquittal or not.” And Mr Sharpe looked as if he expected to find Bagot highly gratified by his approbation.

“Do you presume, for a moment, to insinuate a doubt of my innocence of the charge?” asked Bagot sternly.

“Oh, certainly not,” returned Jack Sharpe, with a laugh. “Quite right to carry it high, Colonel. Nothing like putting a good face on it.”

“Sir,” said Bagot, increasing his pace, “your remarks are offensive.”

“I didn’t mean them to be so,” answered the other. “But you’re quite right to carry it off this way. You’ve come into a good property, I hear, and that will keep you fair with the world, however this trial, or a dozen other such, might go. Some people have the devil’s own luck. Yes, Colonel, you’ll pull through it—you’ll never fall among thieves. It’s only the _poor_ devils,” added Jack Sharpe bitterly, “that get pitched into and kicked into outer darkness.”

Bagot was perfectly livid. By this time they had reached a corner of the street, and, stopping short, the Colonel said—

“Oblige me by saying which way your road lies.”

“Well, well, good morning, Colonel. I’m not offended, for, I daresay, I should do the same myself in your place. Politic, Colonel, politic! I wish you good luck and good morning.” And Mr Jack Sharpe took himself off.

This encounter grated on Bagot’s feelings more than any other incident that had occurred to him. To be hailed familiarly as a comrade by a swindler—to be prejudged as one who had forfeited his position in society, and was to retain it only on new and accidental grounds—this sunk deep, and shook that confidence of success which he had hitherto never permitted himself to question.

Just afterwards he met Seager, who came gaily up to ask him how he had got on at the club. Bagot told him something of the unpleasant treatment he had met with, and the disgust and annoyance it had caused him to feel. Seager grinned.

“You’re not hard enough, Lee—you think too much of these things. Now, I’m as hard as a nail. I meet with exactly the same treatment as you do, but what do I care for it? It doesn’t hurt me—they can’t put _me_ down,” and Seager smiled at the thought of his own superiority. “What would you do, I wonder, if a thing which just now happened to me were to happen to you? I was looking on at a billiard match, and Crossley, (you know Crossley?) who had been, like the rest of ’em, deuced distant and cool to me, offered to bet on the game. I took him up—he declined. ‘Oh, you back out, do you?’ says I. ‘Not at all,’ says Crossley; ‘but I don’t bet with everybody.’ Now, what would you have done?”

“I should have desired him to apologise instantly,” said the Colonel.

“He’d have refused.”

“I’d have kicked him,” said the Colonel.

“’Twould have caused a row, and we’re quite conspicuous enough already,” said Seager. “No; I turned coolly to him, and says I, ‘Very good; as we’re going to close our accounts, I’ll thank you for that ten-pound note I won from you on the Phœbe match.’ Crossley, you know, is poor and proud, and he looked cursedly disgusted and cut up at this exposure of his shortcomings. I’ll bet, he wishes he’d been civil now. You must take these things coolly. Never mind how they look at you: go back to the club, now, and brave it out—show ’em you don’t care for ’em.”

“No,” muttered Bagot, “I’d die first. I’ll go out no more till ’tis over.”

In this resolution he shut himself up in his lodgings, only going out in the dusk to walk in such thoroughfares as were not likely to be frequented by any of his acquaintances. Never had a week passed so dismally with him as this. His nerves were yet unstrung by his late attack, and his anxiety was augmented as the day of the trial approached, until he wondered how he could endure it. In spite of his efforts, his thoughts were impelled into tracks the most repugnant to him. The remembrance of his reception by the members of his club haunted him incessantly, though it was what most of all he wished to forget; for Bagot, being, as we have seen him, a weak-principled man of social habits, though he had found no difficulty in quieting his own conscience, was keenly alive to the horrors of disgrace.

He felt as he remembered to have often felt when a great race was approaching, which was to make or mar him—only the interest now was more painfully strong than ever before. There was an event of some sort in store—why could he not divine it?—ah, if he were only as wise now as he would be this day week, what anxiety would be saved him! He only dared contemplate the possibility of one result—an acquittal. That would lift the weight from his breast and reopen life to him. But a conviction!—that he dared not think of—for that contingency he made no provision.

During this week Harry Noble had come up from the Heronry on some business connected with the stable there, in which the Colonel had been interested; and Bagot, conceiving he might be useful in matters in which he did not choose to trust his own servant Wilson, had desired him to remain in town for the present. This Seager was glad of, for he knew Harry was to be trusted, and he told him in a few words the nature of the predicament the Colonel was in.

“You must have an eye to him,” said Seager; “don’t let him drink much, if you can help it; and if it should be necessary for him to make a trip to France for a time, you must go with him.”

“I’ll go with him to the world’s end, Mr Seager,” said Harry. He was much attached to the Colonel, having known him since the time when Noble, as a boy, entered the Heronry stables; and though he had then, like the other stable-boys, found Bagot very severe and exacting, yet, having once proved himself a careful and trustworthy servant and excellent groom, the Colonel had honoured him since with a good deal of his confidence.

Harry had the more readily agreed to this since, when leaving the Heronry, he had parted in great wrath from Miss Fillett, who had found time in the midst of her religious zeal to harrow up Noble’s soul with fresh jealousies, and to flirt demurely, but effectually, with many brethren who frequented the same chapel.

The day before the trial Seager came, and Bagot prevailed on him to stay and dine, and play écarte. Seager was sanguine of the result of the trial, which was to commence on the morrow, in the Court of Queen’s Bench—spoke in assured terms of the excellence of their case, their counsel, and their witnesses; and telling him to keep up his spirits, wished him good night, promising to bring him back the earliest intelligence of how the day had gone.

The Colonel’s eagerness for, and terror of, the result had now worked him into a state of agitation little short of frenzy. The trial was expected to last two days, but the first would probably show him how the case was likely to terminate. Both Bagot and Seager preferred forfeiting their recognisances to surrendering to take their trial, which would have shut out all hope of escape in the event of an adverse verdict.

Finding it impossible to sit still while in this state, the Colonel started for a long walk, resolving to return at the hour at which Seager might be expected. Arriving a few minutes later than he intended, he went up-stairs to his sitting-room, but started back on seeing a person whom he did not recognise there. His first impression was, that it was a man come to arrest him.

His visitor, on seeing his consternation, gave a loud laugh. It was Mr Seager.

“Gad, Lee,” said that worthy, “it _must_ be well done, if it takes you in. I was in court all day, and sat next a couple of our set, but they hadn’t an idea who I was.”

Mr Seager was certainly well disguised, and it was no wonder the Colonel had not recognised him. Low on his forehead came a black wig, and whiskers of the same met under his chin. He had a mustache also; his coat was blue, his waistcoat gorgeous, with two or three chains, evidently plated, meandering over it, and his trousers were of a large and brilliant check. In his elaborate shirt-front appeared several studs, like little watches, and his neck was enveloped in a black satin stock with gold flowers and a great pin.

“What d’ye think, Lee—don’t I look the nobby Israelite, eh?”

Bagot shortly admitted the excellence of his disguise, and then asked, “What news?—is it over?”

“Only the prosecution—that’s finished,” returned the metamorphosed Seager.

“Well,” said Bagot breathlessly, “and how—how did it go?”

“Sit down,” said Seager; “give me a cigar, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the anxiety of Bagot with the composure of Seager. No one would have imagined them to be both equally concerned in the proceedings that the latter now proceeded to relate; while Bagot glared at him, gnawing his nails and breathing hard.

“The court,” said Seager, throwing himself back in the chair after he had lit his cigar, with his hands in his trousers’ pockets, and his feet stretched to the fire—“the court was crowded. Sloperton’s counsel opened the ball by giving a sketch of the whole affair—little personal histories of you and me and Sloperton, the sort of things that might be prefixed to our poetical works after we’re dead—you know the style of thing, Lee, birth, parentage, breeding, so forth. Then came out Sloperton’s meeting with us at the Bush at Doddington—the adjournment to Oates’s room—the broiled bones, cards, and betting, and the terms of the wager with Sloperton.

“Our friend Sloper was the first witness, and had got himself up a most awful swell, as you may suppose, on such a grand occasion, and there wasn’t a young lady in court who didn’t sympathise with him. I could see by his way of giving evidence he was as vindictive as the devil. Our fellows went at him, but they didn’t damage his evidence much. He told about the bet—how, by your advice, he had sent to me to offer to compromise it—and how he had perfectly depended all was fair till he heard the mare was lame. Oates followed, and corroborated the whole story. Then came one of the vets who attended the mare, and he swore, in his opinion, she’d got navicular disease. Then came a new actor” (Bagot listened more eagerly than ever), “one Mr Chick, who saw us return to the stable that morning we gave Goshawk the trial; and he swore the mare was lame then.”

Bagot drew a long breath, and fell back in his chair.

“Against all this,” Seager went on, “we’ve got to-morrow the evidence of Jim, who’ll swear the mare never was lame while in his charge, and of the other vet, who’ll swear she was and is sound. So cheer up, old boy; it may go all right yet. Never say die.”

Seager paused, and looked at Bagot, who had covered his face with his hands. Both were silent for a space.

“By the by,” said Seager presently, in an indifferent tone, yet eyeing Bagot with a keenness that showed his interest in the question—“by the by, where’s Lady Lee now?”

Bagot did not answer, and Seager repeated the question.

“What’s Lady Lee to you, sir?” said Bagot, removing his hands from his face, the colour of which was very livid.

“O, nothing particular; but she might be something to you, you know, in case of the business going against us to-morrow. You said she had left the Heronry, didn’t you?”

Bagot did not reply.

“It’s no use blinking the matter,” said Seager testily. “Things may go against us to-morrow, in which case I’m off, and so are you, I suppose. I’ve made all my arrangements; but I think we had better take different roads, and appoint a place to meet on the Continent. But I’m short of money for a long trip, and, of course, you’ll accommodate me. We row in the same boat, you know. Come, what will you come down with?”

“Not a penny,” said Bagot in a low thick voice.

“Eh! what?” said Seager, looking up at him.

“Not a penny,” said Bagot, raising his voice. “You devil,” he cried, starting from his chair, “don’t you know you’ve ruined me?” and, seizing the astonished Seager by the throat, he shook him violently.

“You cursed old lunatic!” cried Seager, as soon as he had struggled himself free from Bagot’s grasp. “You’re mad, you old fool. Only raise a finger again, and I’ll brain you with the poker. What d’ye mean, ha? We must talk about this, and you shall apologise, or give me satisfaction.”

“What, an affair of _honour_, eh?” sneered Bagot between his ground teeth. “Between two _gentlemen_! That sounds better than convicted swindlers. Curse you,” he added, in a hoarse whisper, “you’ve been my destruction.”

“He’s dangerous,” thought Seager, as he looked at him. “Come, Lee,” said he, “listen to reason; lend me a supply, and we’ll say no more about this queer behaviour. I know you’ve been drinking.”

“You have my answer, sir,” said Bagot. “Not a penny, I repeat. I wish you may starve—rot in a jail.”

Seager looked at him keenly for a minute. “He’s been at the brandy bottle,” he thought. “Well, let him drink himself mad or dead, if he likes. But, no!—that won’t do either—he may be useful yet. The old fool!” he muttered as he departed, “he doesn’t know how far he has let me into his secrets. Well, he’ll change his note, perhaps;” so saying, he left the room and the house.