Early the next morning Randal received two notes, one from Frank, written in great agitation, begging Randal to see and propitiate his father, whom he feared he had grievously offended; and then running off, rather incoherently, into protestations that his honour as well as his affections were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, at least, he could never abandon.
And the second note was from the squire himself—short, and far less cordial than usual—requesting Mr. Leslie to call on him.
Randal dressed in haste, and went first to Limmer’s hotel. He found the parson with Mr. Hazeldean, and endeavouring in vain to soothe him. The squire had not slept all night, and his appearance was almost haggard.
“Oho! Mr. young Leslie,” said he, throwing himself back in his chair as Randal entered, “I thought you were a friend,—I thought you were Frank’s adviser. Explain, sir! explain!”
“Gently, my dear Mr. Hazeldean,” said the parson. “You do but surprise and alarm Mr. Leslie. Tell him more distinctly what he has to explain.”
SQUIRE.—“Did you or did you not tell me or Mrs. Hazeldean that Frank was in love with Violante Rickeybockey?”
RANDAL (as in amaze).—“I! Never, sir! I feared, on the contrary, that he was somewhat enamoured of a very different person. I hinted at that possibility. I could not do more, for I did not know how far Frank’s affections were seriously engaged. And indeed, sir, Mrs. Hazeldean, though not encouraging the idea that your son could marry a foreigner and a Roman Catholic, did not appear to consider such objections insuperable, if Frank’s happiness were really at stake.”
Here the poor squire gave way to a burst of passion, that involved in one tempest Frank, Randal, Harry herself, and the whole race of foreigners, Roman Catholics, and women. While the squire was still incapable of hearing reason, the parson, taking aside Randal, convinced himself that the whole affair, so far as Randal was concerned, had its origin in a very natural mistake; and that while that young gentleman had been hinting at Beatrice, Mrs. Hazeldean had been thinking of Violante. With considerable difficulty he succeeded in conveying this explanation to the squire, and somewhat appeasing his wrath against Randal. And the Dissimulator, seizing his occasion, then expressed so much grief and astonishment at learning that matters had gone as far as the parson informed him,—that Frank had actually proposed to Beatrice, been accepted, and engaged himself, before even communicating with his father; he declared so earnestly, that he could never conjecture such evil, that he had had Frank’s positive promise to take no step without the sanction of his parents; he professed such sympathy with the squire’s wounded feelings, and such regret at Frank’s involvement, that Mr. Hazeldean at last yielded up his honest heart to his consoler, and griping Randal’s hand, said, “Well, well, I wronged you; beg your pardon. What now is to be done?”
“Why, you cannot consent to this marriage,—impossible!” replied Randal; “and we must hope, therefore, to influence Frank by his sense of duty.”
“That’s it,” said the squire; “for I’ll not give way. Pretty pass things have come to, indeed! A widow, too, I hear. Artful jade! thought, no doubt, to catch a Hazeldean of Hazeldean. My estates go to an outlandish Papistical set of mongrel brats! No, no, never!”
“But,” said the parson, mildly, “perhaps we may be unjustly prejudiced against this lady. We should have consented to Violante; why not to her? She is of good family?”
“Certainly,” said Randal.
“And good character?”
Randal shook his head, and sighed. The squire caught him roughly by the arm—“Answer the parson!” cried he, vehemently.
“Indeed, sir, I cannot speak disrespectfully of the character of a woman,—who may, too, become Frank’s wife; and the world is ill-natured and not to be believed. But you can judge for yourself, my dear Mr. Hazeldean. Ask your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he would advise his nephew to marry.”
“My brother!” exclaimed the squire, furiously. “Consult my distant brother on the affairs of my own son?”
“He is a man of the world,” put in Randal.
“And of feeling and honour,” said the parson; “and, perhaps, through him, we may be enabled to enlighten Frank, and save him from what appears to be the snare of an artful woman.”
“Meanwhile,” said Randal, “I will seek Frank, and do my best with him. Let me go now,—I will return in an hour or so.”
“I will accompany you,” said the parson.
“Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly without a third person, even so wise and kind as you.”
“Let Randal go,” growled the squire. And Randal went. He spent some time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was employed. As he left Frank’s lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized by the squire himself.
“I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the parson’s prosing,” said Mr. Hazeldean, nervously. “I have shaken Dale off. Tell me what has passed. Oh, don’t fear,—I’m a man, and can bear the worst.”
Randal drew the squire’s arm within his, and led him into the adjacent park.
“My dear sir,” said he, sorrowfully, “this is very confidential what I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, because, without such confidence, I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take. But if I betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;—only do not tell him. He would never forgive me; it would forever destroy my influence over him.”
“Go on, go on,” gasped the squire; “speak out. I’ll never tell the ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another.”
“Then,” said Randal, “the secret of his entanglement with Madame di Negra is simply this: he found her in debt—nay, on the point of being arrested—”
“Debt! arrested! Jezebel!”
“And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from arrest, he conferred on her the obligation which no woman of honour could accept save from an affianced husband. Poor Frank!—if sadly taken in, still we must pity and forgive him!”
Suddenly, to Randal’s great surprise, the squire’s whole face brightened up.
“I see, I see!” he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “I have it, I have it! ‘T is an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from him—the mercenary, painted baggage I—why, then, she’ll take it from me. I don’t care what if costs—half my fortune—all! I’d be content never to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my own son, from disgrace and misery; for miserable he will be, when he knows he has broken my heart and his mother’s. And for a creature like that! My boy, a thousand hearty thanks to you. Where does the wench live? I’ll go to her at once.” And as he spoke, the squire actually pulled out his pocketbook, and began turning over and counting the bank-notes in it.
Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on the part of the squire; but Mr. Hazeldean had seized on it with all the obstinacy of his straightforward English mind. He cut Randal’s persuasive eloquence off in the midst.
“Don’t waste your breath! I’ve settled it; and if you don’t tell me where she lives, ‘t is easily found out, I suppose.”
Randal mused a moment. “After all,” thought he, “why not? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. Let him go.”
Accordingly he gave the information required; and, insisting with great earnestness on the squire’s promise not to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank’s pecuniary aid (for that would betray Randal as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the squire’s prompt assurance, “that he knew how to settle matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough,” he accompanied Mr. Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left him,—fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer’s, and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the presence of the parson.
“Excellent good man,” said Randal, “but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for affairs of this kind, which you understand so well.”
“I should think so,” quoth the squire, who had quite recovered his good-humour. “And the parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm here,—firm, sir.” And the squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to May Fair as sturdily and as confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle-show.
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