Caught in a Trap.

by John C. Hutcheson.

Volume 1.

Chapter I.

AMONGST THE PLUNGERS.

"Hullo! Markworth. How lucky! Why you are just the man I want; you're ubiquitous, who'd have thought of seeing you in town?" said Tom Hartshorne, of the --th Dragoons, cheerily, as he sauntered late one summer afternoon into a private billiard-room in Oxford-street, where a tall, dark-complexioned, and strikingly-handsome man, was knocking the b.a.l.l.s about in his shirt-sleeves, and trying all sorts of fancy shots against the cushions--The sole occupant of the room was he, with the exception of the marker, who was looking on in a desultory sort of way at the strokes of the player from his thronelike chair underneath the scoring board.

"Hullo! Tom, by all that's holy! And what brings you to Babylon? I left Boulogne last week, and ran up to see what the 'boys' were after; so here I am, quite at your service. What can I do for you, Tom? Are you hard up, in a row, or run away with your neighbour's wife? Unbosom yourself, _caro mio_."

"No, I'm all right, old chap; but nothing could be better. By Jove!

it's the very thing!"

"Who? Why? What? Enlighten me, Tom."

"Well, you see, Markworth, I've got to go down to-morrow for my annual week to my mother's place in Suss.e.x. It will be so awfully slow; just fancy, old chap, a whole week in that dreary old country house, with no company, no shooting, no fishing, no anything! Why, it's enough to kill a fellow!"

"Poor Tom," observed Markworth, sympathisingly.

"Yes; but that's not the worst either, old chap. My mother is very cranky, you know, and the house itself is as dull as ditch-water. You have to go to bed and get up by clockwork; and if one should be late at dinner, or in turning in, why, it is thought more of by the ruling powers than the worst sin in the decalogue. Besides, I have to keep straight and humour the old lady--for I am quite dependent on her until I come of age; and, though she's very fond of me in her sort of way, she cuts up rough sometimes, and would stop supplies in a moment if I should offend her."

"Dutiful infant! I pity your sorrows, Tom; but what can I do to help you?"

"I'm just coming to that; but we may as well have a game by the way, while we're talking."

"Certainly; how many points shall I give you? The usual number, eh?

Score up, fifteen to spot, marker," he said, turning to the little man, who, with a face of dull impa.s.siveness, was sitting bolt upright, like Neptune with his trident, holding the billiard-rest in a perpendicular position, apparently hearing nothing, although his eyes twinkled every now and then. "You lead, Tom, of course."

"All right, here goes; but, to return to what we were speaking about.

You can help me very much, Markworth."

"Can I? That's a good cannon, you mustn't play all through like that, Tom, or you'll beat me easily; but, go on, and tell me what you want."

"Ha! yes--you see I've got one saving clause in my predicament. My mother says I may bring some one down with me, and I don't know who the deuce to take--for any of our fellows would ruin me in half a day with the old lady, by talking slang, or flirting with the maids, or something else."

"And you want me to go and victimise myself for a week? Much obliged, I'm sure."

"Nonsense, Markworth. By Jove! that's a ripping hazard in the middle pocket; you've got the red in baulk, too, and the game's all in your hands. You are really the only fellow I'd ask, and it would be a perfect G.o.dsend to have you. It won't be so dull for the two of us together, and I'm sure you'll be able to pull me out of many a sc.r.a.pe with the old lady, for she's just your sort, and you can tackle her like one o'clock; only talk to her about the 'Ologies' old country families, and the peerage, and you'll be all right. She never speaks of anything else. Besides, there's a Miss Kingscott down there--a governess, or companion, or something of the sort to my sister--whom I've never yet seen, as she only came there this year. I daresay you can make love to her."

"Thank you, especially after the warning about the maids!"

"But you'll come, won't you?"

"I can't promise, Tom. There, that stroke ends the game; let's finish billiards: they're too slow. What are you going to do to-night, Tom?"

"A lot of us are going to have a quiet little dinner party at Lane's.

The old colonel has been awfully jolly, and let away nearly the whole squad on leave together. Will you come? There'll be Harrowby, Miles-- in fact all the boys. We'll have lansquenette afterwards, and then you and I can talk over about running down to the country. Do come, there's a good fellow."

"Well, I will; what time do you dine?"

"Sharp seven; so don't be late."

"I'll be there. Ta-ta, now, for I've got a lot of letters to write.

I'm stopping at the 'Tavistock' by the way, in case I don't turn up and you want to find me."

They had emerged from the billiard-room, and now stood in the street.

"But you must come, I shall expect you and will take no excuse. I'm going to call on some jolly girls whom I met at the Woolwich hop last night. So good-bye till seven--sharp, mind!"

"All right," answered the other, as Tom Hartshorne hailed a hansom, and was quickly whirled off to his destination in Bruton Street, where the Miss Inskips, two pretty and fast young ladies of the period, dwelt with their mamma, a widowed dame.

Allynne Markworth was not so much a type, as a specimen, of a curious cla.s.s of men constantly to be met with in London society, and of whom society knows next to nothing. No one knew where he came from, who were his progenitors, or what he did; and yet he suffered in no respect from this self-same ignorance of the world around him, in which he lived and moved and had his being, as any other of its more regular units.

He always dressed well, lived well, and seemed to have a fair share of the loaves and fishes which Providence often so unequally bestows.

Having the _entree_ of good houses, he knew "everybody," and everybody knew him; but if you asked any of the men who knew him, and were constantly meeting him about, who Markworth was, the general answer you would get would be, "'Pon my soul, I don't know." Perhaps Tom Hartshorne knew more about him and was more intimate with him than anyone else, but even he had long ceased to puzzle his budding brains over any a.n.a.lysis of his friend: he was a "good fellow," and "a clever fellow, by Jove," and that was enough for him. Tom, however, never dreamt of calling Markworth by his Christian name, and no one else could have approached that phase of intimacy.

To tell the truth Allynne Markworth lived by his wits. He was a _Chevalier d'Industrie_ in a certain sense of the term, although in a slightly more moral degree; and ran the race set before him by preying on the weaknesses, follies, and ignorances of human nature in the abstract, as evinced amongst his fellows in the concrete.

He was a good billiard player, and knew as well when to hide his play as "any other man." Many a stray sovereign did he pick up in lives after pool at Phillipps', even when he could not get a bet on, which he was never loth to take. The Hanover Square Club acknowledged his supremacy at whist, and happy was he who was his partner when guinea points were the rule. Being a good judge of horseflesh, he of course kept a book on the princ.i.p.al events of the year: rare in "hedging" he was seldom known to come out a loser.

With all these little strings to his bow, it is no wonder that Markworth managed to get along pretty comfortably; and although he toiled not nor yet did he spin, I much question whether King Solomon if clad _en regle_ to the nineteenth century would have been better dressed, taking Poole as a criterion. Add to this that Allynne Markworth was a well-bred, handsome man of thirty to thirty-five--although his right age would have been rather hard to discover--and had a certain plausibility of manner which prevented one at first from noticing the somewhat sinister expression about his eyes and mouth; and the surprising thing would have been that he did _not_ get on. Generally he had plenty of money; and when he had not he absented himself from society until his coffers were replenished in some secret way or other.

At this time, however, he had been for some months undergoing a run of ill-luck. The year had opened badly by the failure of a bubble company in which he was deeply interested; then, again, men were fighting shy of him at billiards, and it cost him more work for a sovereign than it was worth, and guinea points at whist were becoming rare events even amongst the most reckless _habitues_ of the club; to climax his misfortunes, he had made a very losing book on the Derby, and although he paid it up-- for to be a defaulter would have ruined him in his set--he had to leave London early in the season in consequence of not having the wherewithal to prosecute the war.

When he had gone away at the end of May he told Tom Hartshorne that he would be detained away on the continent on business for months; and yet here he was back again before the end of July. The fact was he came back money-hunting, and was so pressed now that he hardly knew where to turn. He had made up his mind that unless he married a fortune, discovered a gold mine, or tumbled into some wonderful luck, that his "little game," as he expressed it, would be "all up." He was glad to meet Tom Hartshorne so very opportunely at the present juncture, for he thought that he might be put in the way of some plan for changing events--and at the worst a little good card playing in the evening might place him in the position of being able "to look about him."

Punctually at seven o'clock he showed himself up at Lane's Hotel, where some half-a-dozen men of Tom's regiment were a.s.sembled in a cosy little room up-stairs, well lighted, and with snow-white-cloth-covered-table, all duly prepared and laid out for the contemplated feast.

Dragoon officers or "Plungers"--indeed, all cavalry men--are pretty much alike, and unlike the remainder of the Army List. The mild, "gushing"

comet, dashing "sub," and ma.s.sive captain, full-fledged and silky as to hair and drooping moustache--not forgetting general apathy of expression--of one troop, or regiment, resemble those of another, even as the proverbial "two peas," and it would sorely tax one's powers of diagnosis to discriminate between the members of a party like those a.s.sembled for the present "quiet little dinner, you know."

Tom Hartshorne--no one who ever spoke two words with him could call him anything else but "Tom"--was the only exception to this rule; the others were all men of a cla.s.s, "cla.s.sy," without any distinctive individuality. He, however, was of a different stamp. Of middle-height, thick-set, fair-haired, and open face--Saxon all over-- his was the native mould, thorough British metal, that makes our strong and plucky athletes of the Isis and the Cam, who struggle each year for aquatic supremacy, like the strong _Gyas fortisque Cloanthus_ of Virgil's Aenead--that long line of heroes celebrated for every deed of daring, from Richard the "Lion-hearted" down to the last gallant recipient of the Victoria Cross: men of which stamp, thank G.o.d, live yet among us!

A thorough gentleman, his nature was as open as the day, which you could readily see for yourself by one glance into his truthful face, and clear blue eyes, although perhaps concealed partly by that slight upper-crust or veneer of egotism and affectation, which generally hides the better qualities of young men on first entering into life, and just released from their "mother's ap.r.o.n string" and the trammels of home and school.

Tom Hartshorne was little more than nineteen, and it was a wonder, with his bringing up, that he was what he was; but nothing could altogether taint the sterling stuff of which he was composed. He was one who could pa.s.s through the lighter follies of military life unscathed, and only wanted some strong impetus, some ardent motive to bring him out in his true colours. Tom Hartshorne had made the acquaintance of Markworth about a year previous to the meeting with which the story opens--in fact just after he had been gazetted to his cornetcy, and had taken to him at once--and Markworth had apparently taken to him, a sort of chemical affinity of opposing forces.

It may be thought strange that natures so dissimilar should agree, but so it was. The Latin proverb is often curiously wrong; instead of _similes similibus curantur_, the prefix _dis_ should be added, and then the axiom would be complete. When Tom first met Markworth, who had received an invitation to the mess of the --th, he was struck with him, and on introduction came to like him greatly, for he was so clever, so agreeable, so different to the men he had previously met that he could not fail to be impressed; you always find young men take to a man of the world, particularly if he be like such a man as Markworth was.

The little dinner at Lane's pa.s.sed off well, and the young Plungers enjoyed themselves to their heart's core, now that they were not under the jaundiced eye of their stern major, who envied them all their strong digestions and perfect livers; and, it is to be feared, they drank a little more champagne than was good for some of them. At the table Markworth was placed alongside a brother sub of Tom's, who was most communicative over his wine, talking in a low confidential voice with his elder companion, whom he wished to convince of his "mannishness," of horses, dogs, and women, as befitted a n.o.ble young soldier.

During a pause in the conversation Markworth thought he might gain some information, and having an opportunity of putting in a word, asked--

"By the way, do you know any of Tom's people?"