The Child Wife

The outside world believed it had come to this; that the power of the great revolutionist was broken for ever, and his influence at an end.

But the despots knew better. They knew that as long as Kossuth lived, with character unattainted, scarce a king in Europe that did not need to sit trembling on his throne. Even England’s model queen, or rather the German prince who then controlled the destinies of the English nation, understood the influence that attached to Kossuth’s name, whilst the latter was among the most active of those secret agents who were endeavouring to destroy it.

The hostility of the royal family of England to the ex-dictator of Hungary is easily understood. It had a double source of inspiration: fear of the republican form, and a natural leaning to the alliance of kinship. The crowns of Austria and England are closely united in the liens of a blood-relationship. In the success of Kossuth would be the ruin of cousins-german and German cousins.

It was then the interest of all crowned heads to effect his ruin – if not in body, at least in reputation. His fame, coupled with a spotless character, shielded him from the ordinary dangers of the outlaw. The world’s public opinion stood in the way of their taking his life, or even consigning him to a prison.

But there was still the chance of rendering him innocuous – by blasting his reputation, and so depriving him of the sympathy that had hitherto upheld him.

For this purpose the press was employed – and notoriously the leading journal: that instrument ever ready, at a price, for purposes of oppression.

Openly and secretly it assailed him, by base accusations, and baser insinuations.

He was defended by a young writer, who had but lately made his appearance in the world of London, becoming known through the achievement of a literary triumph; and so successfully defended, that the Kossuth slanders, like curses, came back into the teeth of those who had uttered them.

In its long career of tergiversation, never had this noted newspaper been driven into such a position of shame. There was a whole day, during which it was chaffed on the Stock Exchange, and laughed at in the London clubs.

It has not forgotten that day of humiliation; and often has it given its antagonist cause to remember it. It has since taken ample revenge – by using its immense power to blast his literary reputation.

He thought not of this while writing those letters in defence of freedom and justice. Nor did he care, so long as this object might be attained.

It was attained. The character of the great Magyar came out stainless and triumphant – to the chagrin of suborned scribblers, and the despots who had suborned them.

Cleared in the eyes of the “nationalities,” Kossuth was still dangerous to the crowns of Europe – now more than ever.

The press had failed to befoul him. Other means must be employed to bring about his destruction.

And other means were employed. A plot was conceived to deprive him, not alone of his reputation, but his life. An atrocity so incredible, that in giving an account of it I can scarce expect to be believed!

It is nevertheless true.

Chapter Fifty Three.

A Kingly Scheme of Revolution

Once more met the conclave of crowned heads, by their representatives; no longer in the palace of the Tuileries, but in the mansion of an English nobleman.

This time the ex-dictator of Hungary was the subject of their deliberations.

“So long as he lives,” said the commissioner of that crown most nearly concerned, “so long will there be danger to our empire. A week, a day, a single hour, may witness its dissolution; and you know, gentlemen, what must follow from that?”

It was an Austrian field-marshal who thus spoke.

“From that would follow an emperor without a crown – perhaps without a head!”

The rejoinder came from the joking gentleman who was master of the mansion in which the conspirators were assembled.

“But is it really so serious?” asked the Russian Grand Duke. “Do you not much overrate the influence of this man?”

“Not any, altesse. We have taken pains to make ourselves acquainted with it. Our emissaries, sent throughout Hungary, report that there is scarce a house in the land where prayers are not nightly put up for him. By grand couch and cottage-bed the child is taught to speak the name of Kossuth more fervently than that of Christ – trained to look to him as its future saviour. What can come of this but another rising – a revolution that may spread to every kingdom in Europe?”

“Do you include the empires?” asked the facetious Englishman, glancing significantly toward the Grand Duke.

“Ay, do I. And the islands, too,” retorted the field-marshal. The Russian grinned. The Prussian diplomatist looked incredulous. Not so the representative of France; who, in a short speech, acknowledged the danger. To his master a European revolution would have been fatal, at to himself.

And yet it was he, whose country had least to fear from it, who suggested the vile plan for its avoidance. It came from the representative of England!

“You think Kossuth is your chief danger?” he said, addressing himself to the Austrian.

“We know it. We don’t care for Mazzini, with his wild schemes on the Italian side. The people there begin to think him mad. Our danger lies upon the Danube.”

“And your safety can only be secured by action on the south side of the Alps.”

“How? In what way? By what action?” were questions simultaneously put by the several conspirators.

“Explain yourself, my lord,” said the Austrian, appealingly. “Bah! It’s the simplest thing in the world. You want the Hungarian in your power. The Italian, you say, you don’t care for. But you may as well, while you’re about it, catch both, and half a score of other smaller fish – all of whom you can easily get into your net.”

“They are all here! Do you intend giving them up?”

“Ha – ha – ha!” laughed the light-hearted lord. “You forget you’re in free England! To do that would be indeed a danger. No – no. We islanders are not so imprudent. There are other ways to dispose of these troublesome strangers, without making open surrender of them.”

“Other ways! Name them! Name one of them!” The demand came from his fellow-conspirators – all speaking in a breath.

“Well, one way seems easy enough. There’s a talk of trouble in Milan. Your white-coats are not popular in that Italian metropolis, field-marshal! So my despatches tell me.”

“What of that, my lord? We have a strong garrison at Milan. Plenty of Bohemians, with our ever faithful Tyrolese. It is true there are several Hungarian regiments there.”

“Just so. And in these lies the chance of revolutionary leaders. Your chance, if you skilfully turn it to account.”

“How skilfully?”

“Mazzini is tampering with them. So I understand it. Mazzini is a madman. Therefore let him go on with his game. Encourage him. Let him draw Kossuth into the scheme. The Magyar will be sure to take the bait, if you but set it as it should be. Send mutinous men among these Hungarian regiments. Throw out a hope of their being able to raise a revolt – by joining the Italian people. It will lure, not only Mazzini and Kossuth, but along with them the whole fraternity of revolutionary firebrands. Once in your net, you should know how to deal with such fish, without any suggestion from me. They are too strong for any meshes we dare weave around them here: Gentlemen, I hope you understand me?”

“Perfectly?” responded all.

“A splendid ideal,” added the representative from France. “It would be a coup worthy of the genius who has conceived it. Field-marshal, you will act upon this?”

A superfluous question. The Austrian deputy was but too happy to carry back to his master a suggestion, to which he knew he would gladly give his consent; and after another half-hour spent in talking over its details, the conspirators separated.

“It is an original idea!” soliloquised the Englishman, as he sat smoking his cigar after the departure of his guests. “A splendid idea, as my French friend has characterised it. I shall have my revanche against this proud refugee for the slight he has put upon me in the eyes of the English people. Ah! Monsieur Kossuth! if I foresee aright, your revolutionary aspirations will soon come to an end. Yes, my noble demagogue! your days of being dangerous are as good as numbered?”

Chapter Fifty Four.

A Desirable Neighbourhood

Lying west of the Regent’s Park, and separated from it by Park Road, is a tract of land sparsely studded with those genteel cottages which the Londoner delights to invest with the more aristocratic appellation of “villas.”

Each stands in its own grounds of a quarter to half an acre, embowered in a shrubbery of lilacs, laburnums, and laurels.

They are of all styles of architecture known to ancient or modern times. And of all sizes; though the biggest of them, in real estate value, is not worth the tenth part of the ground it occupies.

From this it may be inferred that they are leaseholds, soon to lapse to the fee-simple owner of the soil.

The same will explain their generally dilapidated condition, and the neglect observable about their grounds.

It was different a few years ago; when their leases had some time to run, and it was worth while keeping them in repair. Then, if not fashionable, they were at least “desirable residences”; and a villa in Saint John’s Wood (the name of the neighbourhood) was the ambition of a retired tradesman. There he could have his grounds, his shrubbery, his walks, and even six feet of a fish-pond. There he could sit in the open air, in tasselled robe and smoking-cap, or stroll about amidst a Pantheon of plaster-of-paris statues – imagining himself a Maecenas.

Indeed, so classic in their ideas have been the residents of this district, that one of its chief thoroughfares is called Alpha Road, another Omega Terrace.

Saint John’s Wood was, and still is, a favourite place of abode for “professionals” – for the artist, the actor, and the second-class author. The rents are moderate – the villas, most of them, being small.

Shorn of its tranquil pleasures, the villa district of Saint John’s Wood will soon disappear from the chart of London. Already encompassed by close-built streets, it will itself soon be covered by compact blocks of dwellings, rendering the family of “Eyre” one of the richest in the land.

Annually the leases are lapsing, and piles of building bricks begin to appear in grounds once verdant with close-cut lawn grass, and copsed with roses and rhododendrons.

Through this quarter runs the Regent’s Canal, its banks on both sides rising high above the water level, in consequence of a swell in the ground that required a cutting. It passes under Park Road, into the Regent’s Park, and through this eastward to the City.

In its traverse of the Saint John’s Wood district, its sides are occupied by a double string of dwellings, respectively called North and South Bank, each fronted by another row with a lamp-lit road running between.

They are varied in style; many of them of picturesque appearance, and all more or less embowered in shrubbery.

Those bordering on the canal have gardens sloping down to the water’s edge, and quite private on the side opposite to the tow-path – which is the southern.

Ornamental evergreens, with trees of the weeping kind, drooping over the water, render these back-gardens exceedingly attractive. Standing upon the bridge in Park Road, and looking west up the canal vista, you could scarce believe yourself to be in the city of London, and surrounded by closely packed buildings extending more than a mile beyond.

In one of the South Bank villas, with grounds running back to the canal, dwelt a Scotchman – of the name McTavish.

He was but a second-class clerk in a city banking-house; but being a Scotchman, he might count upon one day becoming chief of the concern.

Perhaps with some foreshadowing of such a fortune, he had leased the villa in question, and furnished it to the extent of his means.

It was one of the prettiest in the string – quite good enough for a joint-stock banker to live in, or die in. McTavish had determined to do the former; and the latter, if the event should occur within the limits of his lease, which extended to twenty-one years.

The Scotchman, prudent in other respects, had been rash in the selection of his residence. He had not been three days in occupation, when he discovered that a notorious courtesan lived on his right, another of less celebrity on his left, while the house directly fronting him, on the opposite side of the road, was occupied by a famed revolutionary leader, and frequented by political refugees from all parts of the disturbed world.

McTavish was dismayed. He had subscribed to a twenty-one years’ lease, at a full rack-rental; for he had acted under conjugal authority in taking the place.

Had he been a bachelor the thing might have signified less. But he was a benedict, with daughters nearly grown up. Besides he was a Presbyterian of the strictest sect – his wife being still tighter laced than himself. Both, moreover, were loyalists of the truest type.

His morality made the proximity of his right and left hand neighbours simply intolerable – while his politics rendered equally a nuisance the revolutionary focus in his front.

There seemed no escape from the dilemma, but to make sacrifice of his dearly-bought premises, or drown himself in the canal that bordered them at the back.

As the drowning would not have benefitted Mrs McTavish, she persuaded him against this idea, and in favour of selling the lease.

Alas, for the imprudent bank clerk! nobody could be found to buy it – unless at such a reduced rate as would have ruined him.

He was a Scotchman, and could not stand this. Far better to stick to the house.

And for a time he stuck to it.

There seemed no escape from it, but by sacrificing the lease. It was a tooth-drawing alternative; but could not be avoided.

As the husband and wife were discussing the question, canvassing it in every shape, they were interrupted by a ring at the gate-bell. It was the evening hour; when the bank clerk having returned from the city, was playing paterfamilias in the bosom of his family.

Who could be calling at that hour? It was too late for a ceremonial visit. Perhaps some unceremonious acquaintance from the Land of Cakes, dropping in for a pipe, and a glass of whisky-toddy?

“There’s yin ootside weeshes to see ye, maister.”

This was said by a rough-skinned damsel – the “maid-of-all-work” – who had shown her freckled face inside the parlour door, and whose patois proclaimed her to have come from the same country as McTavish himself.

“Wishes to see me! Who is it, Maggie?”

“Dinna ken who. It’s a rank stranger – a quare-lookin’ callant, wi’ big beard, and them sort o’ whiskers they ca’ moostachoes. I made free to axe him his bisness. He sayed ’twas aboot taakin’ the hoos.”

“About taking the house?”

“Yis, maister. He sayed he’d heared o’ its bein’ to let.”

“Show him in!”

McTavish sprang to his feet, overturning the chair on which he had been seated. Mrs M., and her trio of flaxen-haired daughters, scuttled off into the back parlour – as if a tiger was about to be uncaged in the front one.

They were not so frightened, however, as to hinder them from, in turn, flattening their noses against a panel of the partition door, and scrutinising the stranger through the keyhole.

“How handsome he is!” exclaimed Elspie, the eldest of the girls.

“Quite a military-looking man!” said the second, Jane, after having completed her scrutiny. “I wonder if he’s married.”

“Come away from there, children?” muttered the mother. “He may hear you, and your papa will be very angry. Come away, I tell you?”

The girls slunk back from the door, and took seats upon a sofa.

But their mother’s curiosity had also to be appeased; and, with an example that corresponded ill with her precept, she dropped down upon her knees, and first placing her eye, and afterward her ear, to the keyhole, listened to every word spoken between her husband and his strange visitor with the “whiskers called moostachoes.”

Chapter Fifty Five.

A Tenant Secured

The visitor thus introduced to the South Bank villa was a man of about thirty years of age, with the air and demeanour of a gentleman.

The city clerk could tell him to be of the West End type. It was visible in the cut of his dress, the tonsure of his hair, and the joining of the moustache to his whiskers.

“Mr McTavish, I presume?” were the words that came from him, as he passed through the parlour door.

The Scotchman nodded assent. Before he could do more, the stranger continued:

“Pardon me, sir, for this seeming intrusion. I’ve heard that your house is to let.”

“Not exactly to let. I’m offering it for sale – that is, the lease.”

“I’ve been misinformed then. How long has the lease to run, may I ask?”

“Twenty-one years.”

“Ah! that will not suit me. I wanted a house only for a short time. I’ve taken a fancy to this South Bank – at least, my wife has; and you know, sir – I presume you’re a married man – that’s everything.”

McTavish did know it, to a terrible certainty: and gave an assenting smile.

“I’m sorry,” pursued the stranger. “I like the house better than any on the Bank. I know my wife would be charmed with it.”

“It’s the same with mine,” said McTavish.

“How you lie?” thought Mrs Mac, with her ear at the keyhole.

“In that case, I presume there’s no chance of our coming to terms. I should have been glad to take it by the year – for one year, certain – and at a good rent.”

“How much would you be inclined to give?” asked the lessee, bethinking him of a compromise.

“Well; I scarcely know. How much do you ask?”

“Furnished, or unfurnished?”

“I’d prefer having it furnished.”

The bank clerk commenced beating his brains. He thought of his pennies, and the objection his wife might have to parting with them. But he thought also, of how they had been daily dishonoured in that unhallowed precinct.

Even while reflecting, a paean of spasmodic revelry, heard on the other side of the paling, sounded suggestive in his ears?

It decided him to concede the furniture, and on terms less exacting than he might otherwise have asked for.

“For a year certain, you say?”

“I’ll take it for a year; and pay in advance, if you desire it.”

A year’s rent in advance is always tempting to a landlord – especially a poor one. McTavish was not rich, whatever might be his prospects in regard to the presidency of the bank.

His wife would have given something to have had his ear at the opposite orifice of the keyhole; so that she could have whispered “Take it?”

“How much, you ask, for the house furnished, and by the year?”

“Precisely so,” answered the stranger.

“Let me see,” answered McTavish, reflecting. “My own rent unfurnished – repairs covenanted in the lease – price of the furniture – interest thereon – well, I could say two hundred pounds per annum.”

“I’ll take it at two hundred. Do you agree to that?”

The bank clerk was electrified with delight. Two hundred pounds a year would be cent-per-cent on his own outlay. Besides he would get rid of the premises, for at least one year, and along with them the proximity of his detestable neighbours. Any sacrifice to escape from this.

He would have let go house and grounds at half the price.

But he, the stranger, was not cunning, and McTavish was shrewd. Seeing this, he not only adhered to the two hundred, but stipulated for the removal of some portion of his furniture.

“Only a few family pieces,” he said; “things that a tenant would not care to be troubled with.”

The stranger was not exacting, and the concession was made.

“Your name, sir?” asked the tenant intending to go out.

“Swinton,” answered the tenant who designed coming in. “Richard Swinton. Here is my card, Mr McTavish; and my reference is Lord – .”

The bank clerk took the card into his trembling fingers. His wife, on the other side of the door, had a sensation in her ear resembling an electric shock.

A tenant with a lord – a celebrated lord – for his referee!

She could scarce restrain herself from shouting through the keyhole:

“Close with him, Mac!”

But Mac needed not the admonition. He had already made up his mind to the letting.

“How soon do you wish to come in?” he asked of the applicant.

“As soon as possible,” was the answer. “To-morrow, if convenient to you.”

“To-morrow?” echoed the cool Scotchman, unaccustomed to such quick transactions, and somewhat surprised at the proposal.

“I own it’s rather unusual,” said the incoming tenant. “But, Mr McTavish, I have a reason for wishing it so. It’s somewhat delicate; but as you are a married man, and the father of a family, – you understand?”

“Perfectly!” pronounced the Scotch paterfamilias, his breast almost turning as tender as that of his better half then sympathetically throbbing behind the partition door.

The sudden transfer was agreed to. Next day Mr McTavish and his family moved out, Mr Swinton having signed the agreement, and given a cheque for the year’s rent in advance – scarce necessary after being endorsed by such a distinguished referee.

Chapter Fifty Six.

A Dress Rehearsal

The revolutionary leader who had taken up his residence vis-à-vis to the McTavish villa, and whose politics were so offensive to its royal lessee, was no other than the ex-dictator of Hungary.

The new tenant had been made aware of this before entering upon occupation. Not by his landlord, but the man under whose instructions he had taken the house.

The proximity of the refugee headquarters was partly the cause of Mr McTavish being so anxious to go out. It was the sole reason why Swinton had shown himself so anxious to come in!

Swinton had this knowledge, and no more. The motive for putting him in possession had not yet been revealed to him. He had been instructed to take that particular house, coûte que coûte; and he had taken it as told, at a cost of two hundred pounds.

His patron had provided him with a cheque for three hundred. Two had gone into the pocket of McTavish; the other remained in his own.

He had got installed in his new domicile; and seated with a cigar between his lips – a real Havanna – was reflecting upon the comforts that surrounded him. How different that couch, with its brocaded cover, and soft cushions, from the hard horse-hair sofa, with its flattened squab! How unlike these luxurious chairs to the sharp skeletons of cane, his wife had reason to remember! While congratulating himself on the change of fortune, he was also bethinking him of what had led to it. He had a tolerably correct idea of why he had been so favoured.

But for what purpose he had been placed in the villa, or the duty there required of him, he was still ignorant.

He could only conjecture that he had something to do with Kossuth. Of this he was almost certain.

He was not to remain long in the dark about his duties. At an interview on the morning of that day, his patron had promised to send him full instructions – by a gentleman who should “come up in the course of the evening.”

Swinton was shrewd enough to have a thought as to who this gentleman would be; and it inspired him to a conversation with his wife, of a nature peculiar as confidential.

“Fan?” he said, taking the cigar from his teeth, and turning towards the couch, on which that amiable creature was reclining.

“Well; what is it?” responded she, also removing a weed from between her pretty lips, and pouting the smoke after it.

“How do you like our new lodgings, love? Better than those at Westbourne?”

“You don’t want me to answer that question, Dick?”

“Oh, no. Not if you don’t wish. But you needn’t snap and snarl so.”

“I am not snapping or snarling. It’s silly of you to say so.”

“Yes, everything’s silly I say, or do either. I’ve been very silly within the last three days. To get into a cosy crib like this, with the rent paid twelve months in advance, and a hundred pounds to keep the kitchen! More to come if I mistake not. Quite stupid of me to have accomplished all this?”