Chapter VII: Town Talk

Before the close of the next day Alexis is once more in Redcastle. This time, however, he goes straight to the chief inn, or hotel, as it proudly calls itself,--the institution which supports and sustains the languishing spirits of the half-dozen or so of idle young men who adorn Redcastle by their residence. The hotel affords them a porch, or portico, in which to lounge and gossip with one another, or for want of more aristocratic company, with the landlord of the establishment, who appears to have nothing to do, from morn till dewy eve, but stand on his threshold and survey the varieties of life as presented by Below Bar and the market-place, where a pedestrian may be seen to pass once in five minutes, and a vehicle of some description may be reckoned upon once in half an hour. Besides this portico, or school of conversation, which is in a manner a free institution, the ‘Coach and Horses’ furnishes its patrons with a bar in which to imbibe mild admixtures of soda water and brandy, appetising sherry and bitters, or the more economic refreshment of a glass of ale, while two lively barmaids, gifted with a considerable power of repartee, stimulate the native youth to intellectual effort. On one side of the hotel is the billiard-room, where awful contests of skill go on under the shaded lamps, and money is won and lost. On the other side is the reading room, where, besides a variety of useful information in the way of Bradshaw’s guides, the county history, almanacks, and time tables, the lounger may enjoy literature as fresh as the day before yesterday’s _Evening Standard_, or a _Punch_ not quite three weeks old.

At the ‘Coach and Horses,’ Alexis deposits his small valise this dark December evening at five o’clock, the universal tea-time among the burgesses and lower classes of Redcastle, the witching hour at which Mrs. Stormont and her friends discuss the morals and finances of their neighbours over harlequin cups of orange pekoe. He has come to the hotel in order to draw breath before swooping down upon that false wife of his, and with a view, perhaps to making himself better acquainted with the ground he stands upon. From Mr. Danvers he may have heard something less or something more than the truth. Here, in the place she inhabits, he is likely to make himself acquainted with the best or the worst that men and women can say of her.

He bitterly resents the falsehoods told him by Jenny Faunthorpe nearly six months ago. That instance of juvenile depravity is only a new proof of the bad blood that flows in the veins of the Trenchards. Alexis looks upon it as hereditary vice.

‘They are all cold-hearted and false alike,’ he tells himself. ‘The man robbed my father of his rights, and wore a smooth face all the time, and pretended to be his friend. The child looks in my face and lies to me. Who could have suspected a child of such falsehood?’

Being set upon by an elderly waiter, and besought to order his dinner, Mr. Secretan expresses a provoking indifference to that meal. He will have anything they like to give him in an hour’s time. A private sitting-room? Yes, by all means, and a good fire. He will go for a walk while his dinner is preparing. And, by the way, which is Mr. Trenchard’s house?

‘Mr. Trenchard’s house? Lancaster Lodge.’ The waiter mentions it with respect in his tone. ‘Straight up the street, sir, and through the Bar. It is the third house on your left above Bar. You can’t miss it, sir. A noble-looking mansion, with a lodge entrance. One of the finest houses in Redcastle.’

Alexis strolls up the street in the winter dusk. Lamps gleam redly behind fanlights. There is a rosy fire-glow on some of the windows. The respectability of the scene strikes the stranger. It is so different from that dilapidated, untidy end of the town in which Dr. Faunthorpe’s house is situated.

‘So my wife has a rich uncle as well as a poor one; and she came back to her native town to pay her court to the rich man, not to seek a homely shelter with the poor one. And she knew that she was my enemy’s niece, and had not candour or courage enough to tell me the truth. It suited her humour better to leave me in a sneaking fashion, and fasten herself on to the wealth of a scoundrel.’

So muses the outraged husband as he walks up the street, and under the old Gothic archway. Yes, there is Lancaster Lodge--ponderous, gloomy, looking like a moneyed man’s house. There is no gleam of light in the upper windows, and the wall hides the lower. A jail or a reformatory would look more cheerful.

‘Is she happy within those walls?’ he asks, ‘or is she like an enchanted princess shut up in a golden prison? She has bartered all things for the hope of wealth--honour, truth, affection--just as her uncle did before her.’

He has no mind to lose much time before standing face to face with his wife; but he wishes first to hear what the townspeople have to tell about her. How much truth is there in that rumour of an intended marriage? How much encouragement has she given to her admirer? At the ‘Coach and Horses’ they are likely to be well informed of all the local gossip, and at the ‘Coach and Horses’ he intends to make his inquiries.

He is shown into a sitting-room, spacious enough for a party of twelve, and brilliantly illuminated. The number of glasses, various in colour and shape, which adorn the dinner-table, might be taken to imply that he is expected to drink deeply of the ‘Coach and Horses’ wine.

On receiving his modest order of a pint of claret, the waiter sweeps off champagne and hock glasses in a low-spirited way, and relieves his disappointment with a faint cough.

The dinner is served in very good style, the elderly waiter receiving the dishes at the door from his subordinate, and sliding about the room stealthily, as if he were attending to the wants of a dying traveller, whose ebbing breath he was appointed to watch.

Alexis dawdles over his fish, and dallies with his cutlet and tomato sauce.

‘Do you see much of Mr. Trenchard?’ he asks.

‘Mr. Trenchard, sir? No, sir. Mr. Trenchard is a very reserved kind of gentleman. He is much sought after in Redcastle, and I believe he do attend a good many dinner parties among first-class people; but as to playing billiards in our room downstairs, or taking his glass of wine, or brandy and soda, he is quite the last kind of gentleman. Besides which, one may say that his age precludes that sort of thing, although we have older gentlemen than Mr. Trenchard in our billiard-room. But he has a very fine table of his own, you see, sir; indeed, I may say he drawed off one of our best customers with his table--young Mr. Stormont, which used to come here almost every evening, a poor player, but a genteel young man. Very much taken with Mr. Trenchard’s niece he is, but there’s not much hope for him in that quarter,’ adds the waiter, as he lowers the cover on the cutlet dish, with a twirl of his arm like a movement in the broadsword exercise.

‘Why not?’ asks Alexis.

‘Because the young lady looks higher, sir; as well she may, seeing that Mr. Frederick Stormont hasn’t one sixpence to rub against another, as the saying is. Miss Faunthorpe is a beauty, sir--a regular beauty; and she’s been told of it often enough, I’ll lay, to know how to set a right value on herself. And then the old gentleman’s sure to leave her his money. He’s adopted her, you see, sir. There’s other nieces down town, but this one’s his fancy, and he’s adopted her. Everybody knows she’s to come into all his money. And now they say Sir Wilford Cardonnel’s going to marry her, and she’ll hold her head as high as any in the West Riding, for there isn’t a finer gentleman than Sir Wilford between here and York.’

‘Who says that she is to be married to Sir Wilford?’

‘Everybody, sir, it’s town talk. There’s been plenty said about it downstairs in the billiard-room. They’ve chaffed young Mr. Stormont about it, and he do look uncommon miserable, poor young gentleman, when they go on at him, and tell him he’s missed his chance with Miss Faunthorpe. “And if you don’t marry an heiress, whatever are you to do to get your living, Fred?” says they. “Blest if I know,” says he. “I’ll tell you what, Fred,” says Mr. Staples, the Vet, “you’ll have to eat that horse of yours, or he’ll have to eat you. It’ll come to that sooner or later, for you’ll never be able to keep him.” “I’m afraid it will,” answers Mr. Stormont, as meek as a lamb.’

Alexis is not warmly interested in the impression which Sibyl’s intended marriage--or the rumour of such an intention--may have made upon Frederick Stormont. He is more concerned in its effect upon himself.

‘And pray what kind of man is this Stephen Trenchard?’ he asks presently. ‘Is he liked in your town?’

‘I don’t know about liking,’ replies the waiter, dubiously; ‘the townspeople would hardly go to take such a liberty. He’s very much looked up to.’

‘Does he or the young lady--this pretty niece of his--do much good in the place?’

‘Mr. Trenchard subscribes to our local charities, sir. Good, in the sense of districk visiting, or Sunday school teaching, or anything in that line, the young lady does not do. Her position raises her above that, you see, sir.’

‘I understand. Active benevolence of that kind occupies a lower level.’

‘Decidedly, sir. Young persons who have less call upon their time can naturally devote themselves to school teaching and such like. Miss Faunthorpe moves in the highest society--she visits a great deal. It would be quite out of the question----’

‘That she should trouble herself about the welfare of her inferior fellow-creatures. Of course. Well, I’ll go and call at Lancaster Lodge. It’s rather late; but as a traveller I may be excused that informality.’

‘You know Mr. Trenchard, sir?’ exclaims the waiter, alarmed lest he should not have expressed himself carefully enough about that great man, although he has echoed those accents of adulation which prevail in Redcastle whenever Stephen Trenchard is mentioned.

‘My father knew him--intimately,’ replies Alexis.

It is between seven and eight when he rings the bell at the lodge gate of Mr. Trenchard’s mansion, a fine winter’s night. The stars are shining on lawn and plane trees, shrubbery and empty flower-beds, as the lodgekeeper shows Mr. Secretan the way to the solemn pillared doorway.

Here a footman in livery, warned by the lodgekeeper’s bell, receives the stranger. Very silent is the lamplit hall, where a bust of Wellington, on a porphyry pedestal, keeps company with a bust of Pitt the younger, on a column of malachite. Crimson cloth curtains hang before the tall doors, and keep the draught from the chilly East Indian.

‘Is Mr. Trenchard at home?’ asks Alexis, ‘and can I see him on particular business?’

He has come to this house determined to keep no bounds--to exercise a husband’s authority to the uttermost, if that stretch of power be needed--to claim his wife from his father’s deadliest foe, Stephen Trenchard. Scarcely worth the claiming, perhaps, with that false blood in her veins. But some remnant of the old faithful love still lingers in his breast. If she will come back to him--if she will surrender all hope of her uncle’s ill-gotten wealth, and come back to him, believing him still one of the humble toilers in life’s great hive, he will take her back to his heart of hearts, and cherish her for all his life to come.