Chapter X (2)

"Mr. Runnington is steadily and patiently unravelling," said he, as they sat in unrestrained converse after dinner--(I must take the opportunity of saying that Miss Aubrey looked as beautiful as ever, and in brilliant spirits)--"one of the most monstrous tissues of fraud that ever was woven by man! We sometimes imagine that Mr. Gammon must have had in view the securing Yatton for himself! The firm of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, are completely overwhelmed with the consequences of their abominable conduct!--I understand they have terribly taken in the Jews--to the amount of at least seventy or eighty thousand pounds of hard cash; and one of them, it seems, on discovering that he has no real and effectual security, very nearly succeeded in hanging himself the other day."

"What's this I see in the paper about a Mr. Tag-rag?" inquired Lord De la Zouch:--and Mr. Aubrey told him the miserable condition to which Tag-rag had been reduced by the alleged chicanery of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap.

"Mr. Runnington seems to be managing matters with great vigor and skill," said his Lordship.

"Admirably! admirably! I never in my life saw or heard of such complete success as attends every step he takes against the enemy; he is hourly pressing them nearer and nearer to the verge of the precipice, and cutting off all retreat. They would fight, but they have no funds! Look at the administration suit!" Mr. Aubrey then proceeded to mention two very important circumstances which had come to his knowledge since his former visit to town. First, an offer was understood to have come direct from Mr. Gammon, to abandon the defence to the ejectment, on condition of his receiving, on behalf of Mr. Titmouse, the sum of two thousand pounds; but Mr. Runnington had peremptorily refused to listen to any proposal of the kind, and the action was, at that moment, in full progress, with every prospect of there being no real defence even attempted. The next piece of intelligence was, that Messrs. Screw and Son, the solicitors to the Vulture Insurance Company, had called on Messrs. Runnington, on learning that they were the solicitors of the party to whom letters of administration had been granted, and intimated that the directors--those discreet and candid gentlemen--"taking all the circumstances of the case into their consideration," had determined to offer no further opposition to the payment of the policy on the life of the late Lady Stratton. Mr. Screw talked very finely about the high principle and good feeling which ever actuated that distinguished Company; but he did not tell Mr. Runnington what was the real cause of their abandoning their opposition, which was this--that before their "commission" to examine their sole witness, Dr. Podagra, could have reached China, they had accidentally received authentic intelligence of his death; he having been killed by a crowd for vaccinating the infant of one of the Chinese! Under these circumstances, Mr. Runnington agreed to the terms proposed on the part of the Company; viz. that the action be discontinued forthwith, each party pay their own costs, and the whole amount of the policy, minus the £2,000 which had been advanced to Lady Stratton, be paid to Mr. Aubrey within a month from the day of discontinuing the action. Though Kate very vehemently protested against it, she was at length persuaded to allow her brother to act according to the manifest intentions of the venerable deceased; and he in his turn received a very gratifying assurance that she would have given him, under the special circumstances of the case, no anxiety respecting his bond for £2,000 given to Lady Stratton! Thus was Kate no longer a dowerless maiden; having at her absolute disposal a sum of thirteen thousand pounds, in addition to which, in the event of their being restored to the possession of Yatton, she would be in the receipt of the income left her as a charge upon the estate by her father; viz. five hundred a-year.

While the cheering sunshine of returning prosperity was thus beaming with daily increasing warmth and brightness upon the Aubreys,

"And all the clouds that lower'd upon their house,"

were,

"In the deep bosom of the ocean buried"--

the sun of that proud and weak old man, the Earl of Dreddlington, was indeed going down in darkness. The proceedings which have been laid at length before the reader, arising out of the extraordinary termination of the inquiry set on foot by the ecclesiastical court, and quickly ending in the adoption of measures for the immediate recovery of Yatton, had attracted far too much of public attention to admit of their being concealed from the earl, comparatively secluded from the world though he was. But the frightful confirmation of his assertion concerning what had occurred between himself and Mr. Gammon, respecting Titmouse, appeared to make no commensurate impression upon a mind no longer capable of appreciating it. He had been seized by a partial paralysis shortly after the last interview between himself, Mr. Gammon, and the Duke of Tantallan; and it was evident that his reason was failing rapidly. And it was perhaps a merciful dispensation, for it appeared that the cup of his misery and mortification was not even yet full. That other monstrous fabric of absurdity and fraud, built upon public credulity--the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Company--suddenly dropped to pieces, principally on account of its chief architect, Mr. Gammon, being unable to continue that attention and skill by which it had been kept so long in existence. It suddenly exploded, involving everybody concerned in it in ruin. The infatuated, and now dismayed, shareholders, and the numerous and designing creditors, came crowding round the more prominent of the parties concerned, clamorous and desperate. Meetings were called from time to time--producing, however, no other results, than fearfully extending the prospect of liability incurred. The shareholders had fondly imagined that they could repose with confidence on the provision inserted in the prospectus, and in the deed of settlement--viz. that no one was to be liable beyond the amount of their shares actually subscribed for: alas! how dreadful the delusion, and how quickly dissipated! The houses of Lord Dreddlington, the Duke of Tantallan, and others, were besieged by importunate creditors; and at length a general meeting was called, at which resolutions were passed, strongly reflecting upon the Earl of Dreddlington and Mr. Gammon; and directing the solicitor concerned for the rest of the shareholders to file a bill against the earl and Mr. Gammon, for the purpose of compelling them to pay all the debts incurred by the Company! More than this, it was threatened that unless satisfactory proposals were promptly received from, or made on behalf of, the Earl of Dreddlington, he would be proceeded against as a TRADER liable to the bankrupt-laws, and a docket forthwith struck against him! Of this crowning indignity impending over his head, the poor old peer was fortunately not conscious, being at the moment resident at Poppleton Hall, in a state not far removed from complete imbecility. The Duke of Tantallan was similarly threatened; and alarmed and enraged almost to a pitch of madness, resolved to take measures for completely exposing and punishing the individual, to whose fraudulent plausibility and sophistries he justly attributed the calamity which had befallen him and the Earl of Dreddlington.

"Out of this nettle danger, I'll yet pluck the flower _safety_"--said Mr. Gammon to himself, as he sat inside one of the coaches going to Brighton, towards the close of the month of November, being on the morning after the explosion of the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Company. Inextricably involved as he appeared, yet, conscious of his almost boundless internal resources, he did not despair of retrieving himself, and defeating the vindictive measures taken against him. His chambers were besieged by applicants for admission--Titmouse among them; whose senseless pertinacity, overheard by Gammon as he sat within, while his laundress was being daily worried by Titmouse, several times excited Gammon almost up to the point of darting out and splitting open the head of the intruder; old Mr. Quirk also sent daily letters, in a piteous strain, and called besides daily, begging to be reconciled to Gammon; but he sternly turned a deaf ear to all such applications. In order to escape this intolerable persecution, at all events for a while, and in change of scene and air, unpropitious though the weather was, seek to recruit his health and spirits, he had determined upon spending a week at Brighton; telling no one, however, except his old and faithful laundress, his destination; and instructing her to say that he was gone, she believed, into Suffolk, but would certainly return to town within a week. His pale and harassed features showed how much he required repose and relief, but for these he sought in vain. He felt not a whit the better after a two days' stay, though the weather had suddenly cleared up, the sky become clear and bright, and the air brisk and bracing. Whithersoever _he_ went, he carried about him a thick gloom which no sunshine could penetrate, no breezes dissipate. He could find rest nowhere, neither at home nor abroad, neither alone nor in company, neither sleeping nor waking. His brow was clouded by a stern melancholy, his heart was bursting with a sense of defeat, shame, exposure, mortification; and with all his firmness of nerve, he could not contemplate the future but with a shudder of apprehension. In fact, he was in a state of intense nervous irritability and excitement from morning to night. On the evening of the third day after his arrival, the London paper, forwarded to him as usual from the neighboring library, contained a paragraph which excited him not a little; it being to the effect, that a named solicitor of eminence had been the day before appointed by the Lord Chancellor to that very office--the one, in truth, which Gammon knew his Lordship had all along destined for _him_; one which he could have filled to admiration, which would have given him permanent _status_ in society; the salary attached to it being, moreover, £1,800 a-year! Gammon laid down the paper--a mist came before his eyes--and a sense of desolation pervaded his soul. After a while his eye lit on another part of the paper--gracious heavens!--there were three or four lines which instantly roused him almost into madness. It was an advertisement, stating that _he_ had "ABSCONDED," and offering a reward of £200 to any one who would give information by which he might be "_discovered and apprehended_!"

"_Absconded!_" he exclaimed aloud, starting up, and his eye flaming with fury--"accursed miscreants! I'll quickly undeceive them!"--Instantly unlocking his paper-case, he sat down and wrote off a letter to the editor of the newspaper, giving his full name and address; most indignantly denying his having attempted or dreamed of absconding; stating that he should be in London within forty-eight hours; and requiring an ample apology for the gross insult and libel which had been perpetrated, to be inserted in the next number of his paper. Then he wrote off to the solicitor, Mr. Winnington, who had conducted all the town proceedings in the cause of _Wigley_ v. _Gammon_, alluding in terms of indignation and astonishment to the offensive advertisement, and assuring him that he should, within forty-eight hours, be found, as usual, at his chambers, and prepared to make an immediate and satisfactory arrangement in respect of the damages and costs which were now due from him. In a similar strain he wrote to Mr. Runnington (who had maintained throughout, personally, a cautious courtesy towards Mr. Gammon)--begging him to postpone signing judgment in the action of _Doe on the demise of Aubrey_ v. _Roe_, till the last day of term, as he had a new and final proposal to make, which might have the effect of saving great delay and expense. He added, that he had also a proposition to offer upon the subject of Lord De la Zouch's bond and Mr. Aubrey's promissory notes, and begged the favor of a line in answer, addressed to him at his chambers in Thavies' Inn, and which he might find on his arrival. To a similar effect, he also wrote to the solicitor who was working the docket which had been struck against Mr. Tag-rag; and also to the solicitor who was employed on behalf of the shareholders in the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Company:--in all of them reprobating, in terms of the keenest indignation, the unwarrantable and libellous use of his name which had been made, and making appointments for the individuals addressed to call at his chambers on the day after his arrival in town. Having thus done all in his power to counteract the injurious effects which were calculated to arise from so very premature and cruel a measure as that which had been taken, in offering a reward for his apprehension as an absconded felon, he folded up, sealed, and directed the letters, and took them himself to the post-office, in time for that night's post; and that he was really terribly excited, may be easily believed. He did not touch the dinner which he found laid for him on his return, but sat on the sofa, absorbed in thought, for nearly an hour: when he suddenly rang the bell, ordered his clothes to be instantly got ready for travelling, and his bill made out. He then went and secured a place in that night's mail, which was starting for town at half-past eight o'clock. At that hour he quitted Brighton, being the only inside passenger--a circumstance which gave him an ample opportunity for reflection, and of which doubtless he availed himself--at all events, certain it is, that he closed not his eyes in sleep during the whole of the journey. Greatly to the surprise of his laundress, he made his appearance at his chambers between six and seven o'clock in the morning, rousing her from bed. He had thus, it will be observed, reached town contemporaneously with his own letters; and as all the appointments which he had made, were for the day after that of his arrival, he had secured a twenty-four hours' freedom from interruption of any sort, and resolved to avail himself of it, by keeping within doors the whole of the time, his laundress denying him, as usual, to any one who might call. He asked her if she had seen or heard of the atrocious advertisement which had appeared in yesterday's paper? She replied, in tears, that she had; and added, that no doubt to that circumstance were to be attributed the calls made yesterday from morning to night--an announcement which seemed to heighten the excitement under which Mr. Gammon was evidently laboring. As soon as his lamp had been lit, he opened his paper-case, and wrote the following letter:--

"_Thavies' Inn, Wednesday Morning._

"DEAR HARTLEY,--As I have not missed an annual meeting of _our_
little club for these ten years, I shall be found at my place,
to-night, at nine to a moment: that is, by the way, if I shall be
admitted, after the execrable advertisement concerning me which
appeared in yesterday's papers, and the writer of which I will give
cause, if I can discover him, to repent to the latest day he lives.
I came up this morning suddenly, to refute, by my presence and by
my acts, the villanous falsehoods about my absconding. _Entre
nous_, I am somewhat puzzled, just now, certainly--but never fear!
I shall find a way out of the wood yet. Expect me at nine, to a
minute,--Yours as ever,
"O. GAMMON.

"HARRY HARTLEY, Esq.
"Kensington Square."

This he sealed and directed; and requesting his laundress to put it into the office in time for the first post, without fail--he got into bed, and slept for a couple of hours: when he awoke somewhat refreshed, made his toilet as usual, and partook of a slight breakfast.

"_You_ did not suppose I had absconded, Mrs. Brown, eh?" he inquired with a melancholy smile, as she removed his breakfast things.

"No, sir; indeed I did not believe a word of it--you've always been a kind and just master to me, sir--and"--she raised her apron to her eyes, and sobbed.

"And I hope long to continue so, Mrs. Brown. By the way, were not your wages due a day or two ago?"

"Oh yes! sir--but it does not signify, sir, the least; though on second thoughts--it does, sir; for my little niece is to be taken into the country--she's dying, I fear--and her mother's been out of work for"----

"Here's a ten-pound note, Mrs. Brown," replied Mr. Gammon, taking one from his pocket-book--"pay yourself your wages; write me a receipt as usual, and keep the rest on account of the next quarter, if it will assist you just now when you are in trouble." She took the bank-note with many expressions of thankfulness; and but for her tears, which flowed plentifully, she might have noticed that there was something deadly in the eye of her kind and tranquil master. On her retiring, he rose, and walked to and fro for a long time, with folded arms, wrapped in profound meditation--from which he was occasionally unpleasantly startled by hearing knocks at his door, and then his laundress assuring the visitor that Mr. Gammon was out of town, but would return on the morrow. It was a cheerless November day, the snow fluttering lazily through the foggy air; but his room was made snug and cheerful enough, by the large fire which he kept up. Opening his desk, he sat down, about noon, and wrote a very long letter--in the course of which, however, he repeatedly laid down his pen--got up and walked about, heaving deep sighs, and being occasionally exceedingly agitated. At length he concluded it, paused some time, and then folded it up, and sealed it. Then he spent at least two hours in examining all the papers in his desk and cabinet. A considerable number of them he burned, and replaced and arranged the remainder carefully. Then again he walked up and down the room. The cat, a very fine and favorite one, which had been several years an inmate of the chambers, attracted his attention, by rubbing against his legs. "Poor puss!" he exclaimed, stroking her fondly on the back; and, after a while, the glossy creature sidled away, as it were reluctantly, from his caressing hand, and lay comfortably coiled up on the hearth-rug, as before. Again he walked to and fro, absorbed in melancholy reflection for some time; from which he was roused, about five, by Mrs. Brown bringing in the spare dinner--which, having barely tasted, he soon dismissed, telling her that he felt a strange shooting pain in his head, and that his eyes seemed sometimes covered by a mist: but that he doubted not his being well enough to keep his appointment at the club--as she knew had been his habit for years. He requested her to have his dressing-room prepared by a quarter to eight, and a coach fetched by eight o'clock precisely. As soon as she had withdrawn, he sat down and wrote the following letter to the oldest and most devoted personal friend he had in the world:

"MY DEAR----. I entreat you, by our long unbroken friendship, to
keep the enclosed letter by you, for a fortnight; and then, with
your own hand, and alone, deliver it to the individual to whom it
is addressed. Burn _this_ note--I mean the one which I am at this
instant writing to you--the instant you shall have read it; and
take care that no eye sees the enclosed but _hers_--or all my
efforts to secure a _little_ provision for her will be frustrated.
In the corner of the top drawer of my cabinet will be found, folded
up, a document referred to in the enclosed letter--in fact, _my
will_--and which I wish _you_, as an old friend, to take the very
earliest opportunity of discovering, _accidentally_. You will find
the _date_ all correct, and _safe_. But whether my fiendish
persecutors will allow it to have any effect, situated as are my
affairs, is more than doubtful. Still I will throw away no chance
in favor of the being who has occupied so much of my last thoughts.
Call here to-morrow--at any hour you please--and say that you have
called to see me, _according to my appointment_, and produce and
show the enclosed ordinary invitation, to any one who may inquire,
as being the only communication which you have received from me
since my return from Brighton. Bear all this in mind, by the value
you set upon my friendship: _whatever you may then see or hear, be
firm and prudent_.--O. G."

"_Wednesday_."

In this letter he enclosed the long letter and the note already mentioned; and having sealed and directed the whole, with elaborate distinctness, he threw his cloak round him, and went with his packet to the post-office, and with his own hand, after an instant's hesitation, dropped it into the box, and returned to his chambers.

Then he took another sheet of paper, and wrote thus:

"DEAR VIPER,--I doubt whether, after all, there will be a
Dissolution; but, at any rate, I will perform my promise, and be
ready with what you wish for Sunday week.--Yours ever,
"O. G.

"P. S.--I shall call upon you on Saturday, without fail."

This he folded up and directed, and proceeded to commence the following:--

"_Thavies' Inn, Wednesday._

"DEAR SIR,--I have finally determined to make every sacrifice in
order to extricate myself, with honor, from my present
embarrassments. You will, therefore, as soon as you get this,
please to sell out all my"----

Here he laid down his pen; and Mrs. Brown presently announcing that everything was ready in his dressing-room, he thanked her, and proceeded to shave and dress. He was not more than a quarter of an hour over his toilet. He had put on his usual evening dress--his blue body-coat, black trousers, a plain shirt and black stock, and a white waistcoat--scarcely whiter, however, than the face of him who wore it.

"I am going for the coach now, sir," said Mrs. Brown, knocking at the door.

"If you please," he replied briskly and cheerfully--and the instant that he had heard her close the outer door after her, he opened the secret spring drawer in his desk, and took out a very small glass phial, with a glass stopper, over which was tied some bladder to preserve its contents from the air; then he carefully closed the drawer. His face was ghastly pale; his knees trembled; his hands were cold and damp as those of the dead. He took a strong peppermint lozenge from the mantelpiece, and chewed it, while he removed the stopper from the bottle, which contained about half a dram of the most subtle and potent poison which has been discovered by man--one extinguishing life almost instantaneously, and leaving no trace of its presence except a slight odor, which he had taken the precaution of masking and overpowering with that of the peppermint. He returned to get his hat, which was in his dressing-room; he put it on--and in glancing at the glass, scarcely recognized the ghastly image which it reflected. His chief object was, to complete the deception he intended practising on the Insurance Company, with whom he had effected a policy on his life for £2,000--and also to delude everybody into the notion of his having died suddenly, but naturally. Having stirred up the large red fire, and made a kind of hollow in it, he took out the stopper, and dropped it, with the bladder, which had been tied over it, into the fire. Then he took his pen in his right hand with a fresh dip of ink in it; kneeled down on the fender, close to the fire; faintly whispered "_Oh, Emma!_" poured the whole of the deadly poison into his mouth, and succeeded in dropping the phial into the very heart of the fire--falling down the next instant on the hearth-rug, oblivious, insensible--_dead_. However it might have been, that the moment after he had done this direful deed, he would have GIVEN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, had it been his, to have undone what he had done--he had succeeded, _for the present_, in effecting his object.

Poor Mrs. Brown's terror, on discovering her master stretched senseless on the floor--his hat pushed partly down over his eyes in the act of falling--may be imagined. Medical assistance was called in, but only to announce that "the vital spark had fled." It was clearly either apoplexy, said the intelligent medical man, or an organic disease of the heart. Of this opinion were the astute coroner and his jury, without hesitation. The deceased had evidently been seized while in the very act of writing to some broker. [Gammon had no more "_stock_" of any sort, for all he had written that letter, than the cat which had unconsciously witnessed, and been for a moment disturbed by, his death.] Mr. Hartley came, and producing the note which he had received, spoke of the disappointment which they had all felt on account of Mr. Gammon's non-arrival. The other letters--the appointments which he had made for the morrow--the evidence which he had taken care to enable his laundress to give--all these things were decisive--it was really "scarcely a case requiring an inquest;" but as they had been called, they returned a verdict of "Died by the Visitation of God." He was buried, a few days afterwards, in the adjoining churchyard, (St. Andrew's,) where he lies mouldering away quietly enough, certainly; but whether (in the language of the solemn and sublime burial-service which his successful fraud had procured to be read over his remains) "_in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ_," is another, and a fearful question.

His "friend" was faithful and discreet, obeying the injunctions of the deceased to the letter. The "individual" alluded to in Mr. Gammon's note to him, was a beautiful girl whom Mr. Gammon had seduced under a solemn promise of marriage; who was passionately attached to him; whose name he had uttered when on the eve of death; and to whom he had, some six months before, bequeathed the amount of the policy--his will being witnessed by Mary Brown, his housekeeper. Though his creditors were, of course, entitled to every farthing of the £2,000, out of which he had so artfully swindled the Insurance Company, they generously allowed her, in consideration of her peculiar and melancholy situation, and of the will which Mr. Gammon had made in her favor, to receive the sum of three hundred pounds. It sufficed to support her during the few months of suffering and shame which were allotted to her upon earth, after the death of her betrayer; not far from whose remains were then deposited the blighted beauty of her whom he had loved only to destroy.