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of not caring anything about him. In a word, she bullied the unfortunate gentleman unmercifully, and he kissed the rod with infatuation.
This state of things was in force up to the time of Mrs. Pennroyal's meeting with Archibald, as above described. After that there was a marked and most enchanting alteration in Mrs. Pennroyal's demeanor toward her husband. She became all at once affectionate and sympathetic. She flattered him, she deferred to him, she consulted him, and drew him on with delicate encouragements to consult her, to confide in her all the private details of his affairs, which he had never done before, and to intrust to her safekeeping every inmost fear and aspiration of his mind. At every point she met him with soothing agreement and ingenuous suggestion; and in particular did she echo and foster his enmity against Sir Archibald Malmaison, and urged him forward in his suit, bidding him spare no expense, since success was assured, and affirming her readiness to mortgage her very jewels, if need were, to pay the eminent legal gentlemen who were to conduct the case.
This behavior of hers afforded her husband especial gratification, for he had always been a little jealous of Sir Archibald, and indeed one of the impelling motives to the present action had been a desire to pay his grudge in this respect. But the discovery that Mrs. Pennroyal hated the young baronet quite as much as he did, filled his soul with balm; so that it only needed the successful termination of the lawsuit to render his bliss complete and overflowing.
Well, the great case came on; and all the nobility and gentry of the three counties, and others besides, were there to see and hear. There were bets that the trial would not be over in seven days, and odds were taken against its lasting seven weeks. Society forgot its ennui and settled itself complacently to listen to a piquant story of scandal, intrigue, imposition, and robbery in high life.
The reader knows the sequel. Never was there such a disappointment. The learned brethren of the law opened their mouths only to shut them again.
For after the famous Mr. Adolphus, counsel for the plaintiff, had eloquently and ingeniously stated his case and given a picturesque and appetizing outline of the evidence that he was going to call, and the facts that he was going to prove; after this preliminary flourish was over, behold, up got Mr. Sergeant Runnington, who appeared on behalf of the defendant, and let fall some remarks which, though given in a sufficiently matter-of-fact and every-day tone, fell like a thunder-clap upon the ears of all present, save two persons; and produced upon the Honorable Richard Pennroyal an effect as if a hand-grenade had been let off within his head, and his spine drawn neatly out through the back of his neck.
I cannot give the learned Sergeant's speech here, but the upshot of it was that the plaintiff had no case; inasmuch as he relied, to make good his claim, on the absence of any direct evidence establishing the identity of the late Sir Clarence Butt Malmaison, and the decease of that illegitimate personage whom the plaintiffs sought to confound with him.
What could have induced the plaintiff to imagine that such direct evidence was not forthcoming, Sergeant Runnington confessed himself at a loss to understand. He had cherished hopes, for the sake of common decency, for the sake of the respect due to the Bench, for the sake of human nature, that his learned brother on the other side would have been able to hold forth a challenge which it would be, in some degree, worth his while to answer; he regretted sincerely to say that those hopes had not been by any means fulfilled.
Had he been previously made aware of the course of attack which the plaintiff had had the audacity to adopt, he could have saved him and other persons much trouble, and the Court some hours of its valuable time, by the utterance of a single word, or, indeed, without the necessity for any words at all. Really, this affair, about which so much noise had been made, was so ridiculously simple and empty that he almost felt inclined to apologize to the Court and to the gentlemen of the jury for showing them how empty and simple it was. But, indeed, he feared that the apology, if there was to be one, was not due from his side.
It was not for him to decide upon the motives which had prompted the plaintiff to bring this action. He should be sorry to charge any one with malice, with unconscionable greed, with treacherous and impudent rapacity. It belonged to the plaintiff to explain why he had carried this case into court, and what were his grounds for supposing that it could be made to issue to his credit and advantage.
For his own part, he should content himself with producing the documents which the learned counsel on the other side had professed himself so anxious to get a sight of, and to humbly request that the plaintiff be nonsuited with costs.
Thus ended the great trial. People could hardly, at first, believe their own ears and eyes; but when the documents were acknowledged to be perfectly genuine and correct, when the learned Mr. Adolphus relinquished the case, not without disgust, and when the Court, after some very severe remarks upon the conduct of the plaintiff, had concluded a short address by adopting the learned Sergeant Runnington's suggestion as to the costs--when all was settled, in short, in the utterly absurd space of two hours and three quarters, then at last did society awake to a perception of the fact that it had been most egregiously and outrageously swindled, and that the Honorable Richard Pennroyal was the swindler.
Nobody was at the pains to conceal these sentiments from the honorable gentleman, and he left the court with as little sympathy as ever disappointed suitor had.
Poor man! he suffered enough, in more ways than one, on that disastrous day, yet one shame and agony, the sharpest of all, was spared him--he did not see the look and the smile that were exchanged between his wife and Sir Archibald Malmaison, when the decision of the Court was made known.
XII.
We are now drawing near the last scene of this strange and sinister history. The action confines itself almost entirely to the three chief figures.
If Pennroyal had been twenty years younger when this catastrophe fell upon him, it might merely have had the effect of enraging him; but he was near fifty years of age, and old for his years, and it seems to have overwhelmed and cowed him. The cat still in his house, like a rat in his hole, saying nothing, and noticing nothing, but drinking a great deal of brandy. The fiery stuff did not excite him; it merely had the effect of keeping him from sinking into unconsciousness of his misery. He knew that he was a ruined man, and that it was too late to retrieve his ruin. Means and energy were alike lacking, and could never be supplied. He sat in his chair, and brooded over all his life, and realized the utterness of his failure; and nothing could rouse him--not even the intelligence that his enemy, Sir Archibald, having by the death of his aunt, Miss Tremount, come into an inheritance of upward of seventy thousand pounds, was buying up the mortgages, and would probably foreclose on him when he got him thoroughly in his power. Archibald had beaten him, and he would fight no more. Let him enjoy his triumph, and push it to the utmost. There was one point, at all events, on which Richard had the better of him, and this thought brought with it the sole spark of comfort that these evil days afforded him. He had his wife--the woman to win whom Sir Archibald would have given all his lands and fortune, and his soul into the bargain. Yes, Kate was his, and his only; and it was the resolve to keep her his, and thus spite his enemy as long as possible, that withheld Richard from seeking relief in suicide at this juncture. So Providence leads men from agony to worse agony, with intent, doubtless, to torture out of them the evil which they will not voluntarily relinquish.
One winter evening, Richard sitting brooding and sipping brandy as usual, with a lamp burning on the table beside him, and the embers of the fire flickering on the broad hearth at his feet, there came a light, measured step and the rustle of a dress, and he knew that his wife was in the room. He raised his haggard visage and looked at her. What a goddess of beauty she seemed! How young, graceful, lovely! How pure and clear were the tints of her face, how lustrous dark her eyes, how soft her ample hair! How peerless she was! and all she was--all this treasure of fragrant womanhood--was his, and not another's. Ay, and his willingly; she really loved him, he thought; she had shown it of late; she cared for him, old, ruined, and degraded though he was. It was a strange thing; it was a pleasant thing. Perhaps, he thought, if he had had such a creature to love him in earlier days, he might not have been where he was now. But then, in earlier days, he was not a ruined and wasted man.