Читать книгу Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart - G. P. R. James - Страница 11

"I beg your pardon, Colonel," he said, as soon as they got into the passage, "but I sha'n't be able to come up to you, to-day, so here's your box;" and he pulled out of his pocket, and presented to Lieberg, the splendid box, of which he had been robbed the night before. "The men will expect you to stand something, sir," he said; "but I'll do what's right, and let you know what it comes to to-morrow."

"Do, do!" replied Lieberg. "But, harkye, R----, here's a young friend of mine who wishes to become acquainted with what is going on in all stations in society. Could you not give him a little insight into the lives of such gentry as we have just seen?"

"Lord bless you!--yes, sir," cried R----; "I will introduce him to them all, if he likes; but, you know, sir, there's a proverb about touching pitch."

"If there's any danger in it," said Lieberg, "of course he had better not."

"Oh, no danger in life, sir!" replied R----; "as I will manage for him; but he had better mind his watch, and his purse, and all that; or leave them at home. The gentleman, I take it, wants a lark; and if that's the case, he can have it; but it may cost him something, perhaps."

"It is not exactly a 'lark,' as you term it," replied Morley, in a more serious and sedate tone than the officer had expected from his years; "as my friend has told you, I want to see something of the mode of life of these people, as well as others."

"Oh! you are a flosofer, sir--are you?" said R----, "or, perhaps, a flantrofist! Well, sir, there's no reason why you shouldn't. It may cost a pound in lush, or what not; but as for your being safe, make your mind at ease about that; they know me too well to meddle with you. I wouldn't introduce you to any of that sort of fellows. Why, you know, sir, there are only two kind of people that set about regularly committing a murder. First of all, there's the fellow that knows he is well nigh up to the mark; he gets not to care what he does, and takes his chance of one thing or another. Those are the old, bad hands, that have been at every kind of thing for many a long year, and having got down low, are not able to keep upon the quiet lay, but must make some grand stroke to set them up altogether, or send them to the drop. Then there are others, sir, that do it unaccountably--men that haven't been half so bad as some others, who seem to take it into their head all of a sudden; those are the fellows that give us the greatest trouble, for we are not up to them; and sometimes we may be a week or ten days before we find out who has done it. But I wont put you in the way of anything that is dangerous. The best thing I can do for you, is, to make you acquainted with Master Higgins, there; you'll find him a very gentlemanly sort of man, and as he lost, I suppose, a matter of three or four pounds upon this snuff-box, it is but right to be civil to him. I could take you over there, sir, where they have gone to talk of the affair; but I think you had better let me bring him to you to-night, and then you can settle the matter together."

This plan was accordingly agreed upon; Morley gave his address to the officer, and as soon as it was dark R---- entered the young gentleman's sitting-room, in Berkeley-square.

"Oh, you are alone, sir, are you?" said he.

"Yes," replied Ernstein. "Have you not brought your friend with you?"

"Oh, yes," replied R---; "but I have left him behind, there, in the passage, talking with your servant, sir; for I thought you might have somebody with you, and might not like to have him seen."

Morley smiled at the officer's estimates of respectability; but he merely replied, "Is he so well known, then?"

"Oh, yes, sir; he is well known enough," said R----; "especially amongst us. However, as a hood for what he was coming about, he brought something to offer you for sale, as if he were a regular tradesman."

"Which, I suppose, he expects me to buy," said Morley, "as the price of his favour and protection."

"Oh, no, sir," answered R----; "you need not buy anything, unless you like. He is always sure to get his market--it is the price that he takes the things at which he makes by."

"Well! bring him in, then," said Morley; "and we will talk about the matter afterwards."

Mr. Higgins was speedily introduced, and, as he entered, gave a rapid, but very marking, glance round the whole room. It is probable, that there was not a table, chair, or piece of china, down to the coffee cup and saucer with which Morley was engaged when he entered, that he would not have known again, had it been brought to pawn at his shop. Mr. Higgins made a low bow to the inhabitant of the apartment, after he had remarked upon the other things which it contained, and, seeing that Morley was making as keen an investigation of his person as he himself ever had made of any object for sale or pledge offered to him by the children of vice and misery with whom he had generally to deal, he thought fit to begin the conversation first, and cut short a scrutiny of which he was not fond.

"Mr. R---- has done me the honour, sir," he began, in very tolerable language, "of bringing me here, because, he said you wished to see some little things in my way;" and having uttered this very equivocal sentence, he held his tongue, and left Morley to take it up in what sense he chose.

Morley was amused, but he replied in such a manner as still to leave the task of explanation to the other.

"I am very much obliged to Mr. R----," he said. "Pray, what have you got to shew me?"

The man grinned, to find that the young gentleman could deal in equivoques, as well as himself. Ere he answered, he gave an approving wink of the eye to the Officer, which might have been translated, perhaps--"He is not a fool, after all, though he is gentleman." However, he would not be brought to the point; and putting his hand in his pocket, he produced a small shagreen case, which he opened, and laid on the table before Morley Ernstein; displaying to the wondering eyes of the young baronet, a pair of very beautiful diamond ear-rings. Morley gazed at them for a moment or two, in no small surprise.

"They are very handsome, indeed," he said, at length--"they are very handsome, indeed, as far as I am any judge of such things; but, pray, what do you intend me to do with these?"

"To buy them, sir," replied the man, quite coolly.

"I hope not to wear them, too," said Morley, "for that I shall scarcely consent to."

"O no, sir!" answered Mr. Higgins, laughing; "but such gentlemen as you, are always wanting diamond ear-rings. Why, there isn't one of all those ladies that you want to make a present to, who would not say they are as handsome a pair as ever were seen. I will let you have them a great bargain, too. Why, Lord ----'s young lady sold me a pair, the other day, for twice the money, which he had given her only two days before."

"A pleasant comment on such sort of connexions," thought Morley Ernstein; but he answered, aloud--"There is one objection to my taking these, even if I did want them, my good friend--namely, that I do not exactly know where they may come from."

The man paused, and stared in his face for a moment.

"Ha, now I take you, sir--now I take you!" he cried, at length. "But I can assure you, you are mistaken; they are not exactly mine. I am disposing of them for another party; but I think if you knew what an act of charity you are doing in buying them, you would give the full money willingly enough, and perhaps something into the bargain."

"Indeed!" said Morley, with his curiosity somewhat excited; "pray, who do they belong to?"

"Oh, as nice a young lady, sir, as ever lived!" replied the man. "Her father was a clergyman, and her mother a lady of good fortune, and amongst the tip-top of the world; but there was a law-suit about the mother's fortune, to whom these ear-rings belonged, I have heard, and that ruined her husband, and broke her heart. She died first, and the parson not long after; and they left this daughter and a boy, who is a wild one, with about a couple of hundred between them, and some nic-nacs. Well, the boy soon got through his money, and his sister's too; and from time to time he came to me, with a lot of things to sell: His sister, he let out the other day, had kept him and herself too by teaching; but now she hasn't had much to do for some time, because she fell ill in the winter, and so lost her pupils. They are well nigh starving, the boy tells me, and in the end she is driven to sell her mother's ear-rings. She only asks forty pounds for them, sir--I think they are worth a hundred."

The story had every appearance of truth about it to the mind of Morley Ernstein. Such things were very likely to happen; and the man told it, too, like a true story. After asking why Mr. Higgins did not buy the diamonds himself, and receiving the satisfactory answer, that he had bought just such a pair before from Lord ----'s young lady, and could not afford to buy two, as well as having received truth-like replies to one or two other questions, Morley made up his mind somewhat precipitately to do three things: to purchase the ear-rings, to find out the brother, and to see if, through him, he could not do something for the sister.

"Pray, where does this young man live?" he said, after having concluded the purchase; "do you think he will have any objection to speak with me about his affairs?"

"Oh, not he, sir!" cried the man; "the young scamp don't mind talking about them to the whole world. He's no shame left! He lives at No. 3, Dover-street, New-road, and his sister too. A prettier girl I never saw, in all the course of my life, for I went there one day."

Morley put down the address; and having dismissed this subject, and arranged to make an expedition with the worthy Mr. Higgins, into some of the most reputable resorts of rogues and vagabonds, on the succeeding night, he suffered him and R---- to depart, waiting with some impatience for the following morning, when he proposed to put his Quixotic purpose, regarding the sellers of the diamond earrings, into execution.

When the Officer and Higgins were on the pavement of Berkeley-square, the former whistled three bars of an air as popular in its day as the elegant tune of Jim Crow has been within our own recollection. These bars were whistled with emphasis, which ought in all grammars to be considered as an additional part of speech, adding more significance to a sentence than either noun or verb. Higgins seemed to understand perfectly well what he meant, and said, in a tone of reply--

"He wants to see life, Master R----. We'll shew it him, wont we? His old servant told me that he was a tender-hearted young gentleman, and did a world of good in his own parish!"