The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

he should come to such a fate as this;⁠—that he, the boy out of the gutter, should entertain at his own house, in London, a Chinese Emperor and English and German Royalty⁠—and that he should do so almost with a rope round his neck. Even if this were to be the end of it all, men would at any rate remember him. The grand dinner which he had given before he was put into prison would live in history. And it would be remembered, too, that he had been the Conservative candidate for the great borough of Westminster⁠—perhaps, even, the elected member. He, too, in his manner, assured himself that a great part of him would escape oblivion. “Non omnis moriar,” in some language of his own, was chanted by him within his own breast, as he sat there looking out on his own magnificent suite of rooms from the armchair which had been consecrated by the use of an Emperor.

No policemen had come to trouble him yet. No hint that he would be “wanted” had been made to him. There was no tangible sign that things were not to go on as they went before. Things would be exactly as they were before, but for the absence of those guests from the dinner-table, and for the words which Miles Grendall had spoken. Had he not allowed himself to be terrified by shadows? Of course he had known that there must be such shadows. His life had been made dark by similar clouds before now, and he had lived through the storms which had followed them. He was thoroughly ashamed of the weakness which had overcome him at the dinner-table, and of that palsy of fear which he had allowed himself to exhibit. There should be no more shrinking such as that. When people talked of him they should say that he was at least a man.

As this was passing through his mind a head was pushed in through one of the doors, and immediately withdrawn. It was his Secretary. “Is that you, Miles?” he said. “Come in. I’m just going home, and came up here to see how the empty rooms would look after they were all gone. What became of your father?”

“I suppose he went away.”

“I suppose he did,” said Melmotte, unable to hinder himself from throwing a certain tone of scorn into his voice⁠—as though proclaiming the fate of his own house and the consequent running away of the rat. “It went off very well, I think.”

“Very well,” said Miles, still standing at the door. There had been a few words of consultation between him and his father⁠—only a very few words. “You’d better see it out tonight, as you’ve had a regular salary, and all that. I shall hook it. I shan’t go near him tomorrow till I find out how things are going. By G⁠⸺, I’ve had about enough of him.” But hardly enough of his money⁠—or it may be presumed that Lord Alfred would have “hooked it” sooner.

“Why don’t you come in, and not stand there?” said Melmotte. “There’s no Emperor here now for you to be afraid of.”

“I’m afraid of nobody,” said Miles, walking into the middle of the room.

“Nor am I. What’s one man that another man should be afraid of him? We’ve got to die, and there’ll be an end of it, I suppose.”

“That’s about it,” said Miles, hardly following the working of his master’s mind.

“I shouldn’t care how soon. When a man has worked as I have done, he gets about tired at my age. I suppose I’d better be down at the committee-room about ten tomorrow?”

“That’s the best, I should say.”

“You’ll be there by that time?” Miles Grendall assented slowly, and with imperfect assent. “And tell your father he might as well be there as early as convenient.”

“All right,” said Miles as he took his departure.

“Curs!” said Melmotte almost aloud. “They neither of them will be there. If any evil can be done to me by treachery and desertion, they will do it.” Then it occurred to him to think whether the Grendall article had been worth all the money that he had paid for it. “Curs!” he said again. He walked down into the hall, and through the banqueting-room, and stood at the place where he himself had sat. What a scene it had been, and how frightfully low his heart had sunk within him! It had been the defection of the Lord Mayor that had hit him hardest. “What cowards they are!” The men went on with their work, not noticing him, and probably not knowing him. The dinner had been done by contract, and the contractor’s foreman was there. The care of the house and the alterations had been confided to another contractor, and his foreman was waiting to see the place locked up. A confidential clerk, who had been with Melmotte for years, and who knew his ways, was there also to guard the property. “Good night, Croll,” he said to the man in German. Croll touched his hat and bade him good night. Melmotte listened anxiously to the tone of the man’s voice, trying to catch from it some indication of the mind within. Did Croll know of these rumours, and if so, what did he think of them? Croll had known him in some perilous circumstances before, and had helped him through them. He paused a moment as though he would ask a question, but resolved at last that silence would be safest. “You’ll see everything safe, eh, Croll?” Croll said that he would see everything safe, and Melmotte passed out into the Square.

He had not far to go, round through Berkeley Square into Bruton Street, but he stood for a few moments looking up at the bright stars. If he could be there, in one of those unknown distant worlds, with all his present intellect and none of his present burdens, he would, he thought, do better than he had