Letter fromMiss Collumpton,in London, toMiss Browne,in the country.
"My Dearest Mora,--Your telegram of yesterday, followed by your letter, which came to hand this morning, was a great relief to our anxiety. Pray give our joint love (Aunt Percival's and mine) to your dear mother, and say how happy it has made us to hear of such a decided change for the better.
"Had you not in your letter made a special point of asking me to furnish you with all particulars anent a certain affair, I should not have thought of troubling you at a time like the present. As, however, you want 'to know, you know,' I shall be glad to do my best to satisfy your curiosity.
"If you remember, dear, you seemed terribly shocked at the idea of Mr. Fildew having asked me to meet him. And yet, what else could the poor man do? Pray bear in mind that in his eyes I am only an indigent young lady, who earns her living by filling the post of companion to a rich young lady. He could not come to Cadogan Place and ask for me. He knows nothing of my friends and connections. Having very foolishly fallen in love with me, how else was he to plead his cause, how else say all that he wanted to say? I have no expectation of making a convert of you, simply because this is one of those questions that you and I look at from totally different points of view. In the first place, you would never fall in love with an artist--at least, not with one who, like Mr. Fildew, had still his way to fight; in the second place, you would never give any man who had not an assured income the slightest encouragement to fall in love with you. Still, without hoping that anything I can say will induce you to modify your views, I must, in justice to myself, put down some of the reasons by which I have been influenced in doing as I have done. All through the affair I have argued with myself in this wise: Supposing I were really a poor girl who was earning her living in a shop or a warehouse, or it matters not how, and Clement had fallen in love with me, what form would our courtship have taken? how and where should we have seen each other? and so on. Thousands of such courtships are going on around us every day. It was only to imagine that Cis Collumpton had lost the whole of her fortune, or had never had any to lose. In short, I wanted to be loved for myself alone; I wanted to be courted as if I were a girl without a 'tocher.'
"Well, I met him by appointment at seven o'clock one evening, in a quiet crescent not far from Sloane Street. He lifted his hat, shook hands, and said how pleased he was to see me. Then he put my hand under his arm, and so took possession of me. 'We can talk better thus,' he said; 'I have something particular to say to you; besides, I want to have you as close to me as possible.'
"Would you believe it, Mora, I seemed to have altogether lost my tongue,' as we used to say when I was a little girl. For aught I had to say for myself, I might have been brought up in the farthest Hebrides. However, he did not seem to mind whether I answered him or not; he had taken me into custody, as it were, and I had no power to resist--nor any inclination either, for the matter of that.
"He began by apologizing for the liberty he had taken in asking me to meet him; 'but as you are here,' he added, 'I may, perhaps, hope that I have not transgressed beyond forgiveness; although, indeed,' he went on, 'I knew of no other mode of obtaining an opportunity of saying all that I want to say.' Still I was tongue-tied, still the words refused to come. The next ten minutes were the most memorable of my life. How my heart beat! how his words thrilled me from head to foot! What he said you can perhaps faintly imagine; if you cannot, I cannot tell you.
"He pressed me for an answer. Then my tongue was loosened. It would not be worth while to put down here what I said, even if I could do so, which I very much doubt. The result was that I promised to meet him again the following Friday evening at the same time and place, and give him an answer of some kind.
"What that answer would be was a foregone conclusion from the first. I might just as well have said 'Yes' then and there, but that I would not have him think I was to be quite so easily won. He pressed my hand to his lips at parting. I left him at the corner at which I had met him, and ran nearly all the way home. Of course, dear, you may be sure that the first thing I did when I found myself alone was to have a good cry. But what happy tears they were! From all which you will understand that your poor Cecilia's case is a desperate one indeed.
"How the time passed till Friday came round I hardly know. I wanted it to come and yet I didn't, if you can understand such a paradox. I longed and yet I trembled, and when Friday evening was really here I wished it were only Thursday. However, I met him as agreed, and was again taken possession of. 'I am afraid you are cold,' he said. 'You ought to have wrapped yourself up more warmly.' I was trembling a little, but not with cold. We walked slowly along, and for some minutes Clement said very little. I think he saw that I was put out, and he was giving me time to recover myself. At length my hand ceased to tremble, and then he spoke, asking me whether I had thought over his words--whether I felt that I could accept his love and give him mine in return? A church clock was beginning to strike eight as he finished speaking. Not till the last stroke had ceased to reverberate did I make any reply. Then for answer I laid one of my hands softly on one of his. 'God bless you, dear one!' he said. 'May you never regret the gift you have given me to-night.' Then, before I knew what had happened, a strong arm was passed round my waist and Clement's lips were pressed to mine. A lamp was no great distance off and a policeman was passing at the moment. The man turned his head and coughed discreetly behind his hand. I turned hot all over, but Clement only laughed, and said it would not have mattered if all the world had been there to see.
"After that we had a long, delicious walk through quiet streets and squares where there were few passers-by. There was a sweet, new feeling at my heart of belonging to some one and of some one belonging to me. Clement asked whether he should write to or see my father. Then I told him that I was an orphan and my own mistress. 'In that case our marriage need not be long delayed,' he said. This frightened me. I had never contemplated such a contingency except as something very remote and far-off indeed. After that he began to talk to me about his position and prospects. He was far from rich at present, he said, and could not give me such a home as he would have liked; but he hoped to be better off by and by. He was getting higher prices for his pictures, and people were beginning to seek him out. If only his Academy picture found a purchaser there was no reason why we should not be married before midsummer. Knowing what I did, I could have clapped my hands for glee as I listened to him. I said I was afraid that I could not make arrangements to be married before Christmas at the very soonest. I could see that he was disappointed. 'I shall certainly hold you to midsummer,' he said, 'unless you can give some good and valid reason for delay.'
"' You must come and see my mother before you are many days older,' he said, presently. 'I have spoken to her about you already.' Would you believe it, Mora, a little jealous pang shot through my heart when he said this? I felt as if I did not want even a mother to come between him and me. But next moment I put away the thought as utterly unworthy, and said how pleased I should be to see and know Mrs. Fildew.
"Then he told me that his mother had been an invalid for years, and that there was no hope of her ever being any better. He told me, too, how cheerful she was---how bravely she bore up against the insidious disease that was slowly but surely eating away her life. I hated myself for allowing even a moment's jealous feeling to find room in my heart. I would try to love her as much as Clement loved her; but what if she should turn against me and say that her son's choice was a foolish one?
"This evening Clement would insist on walking with me nearly to the door. I was in mortal fear lest my aunt should chance to be passing and should recognize me. But nothing happened except that, when the moment came for saying goodnight, Clement repeated the process which had frightened me so much before. But I don't think that even a policeman saw us this time: still I must admit that it was very dreadful. All that night I hardly slept a wink. I felt that I had taken the great, irrevocable step of my life. Did I regret it? you will perhaps ask. No; a thousand times no!
"It was arranged that at our next meeting I should accompany Clement to his mother's to tea. Mrs. Fildew's hour for tea is six o'clock, from which you will at once infer that she belongs to the old school, and having grown up when people took their meals at more rational hours than they do now, she still keeps up the traditions of other days. I had hitherto had no difficulty in stealing out for an hour without my aunt knowing anything about it, but to leave home at half-past five and not get back till ten or eleven, without saying where I was going, or ordering the brougham to take me, was a matter that required a little diplomacy. I hit on a plan at last which I need not detail here, and that without having to tell my aunt any absolute fib about it. It is sufficient to say that I met Clement at the appointed time and place, and that three minutes later I found myself with him in a hansom cab and being whirled along Piccadilly at a tremendous pace. It was not nearly dark yet, and we passed several people whom I had seen only an hour previously in the Row. What their thoughts would have been had they seen Miss Collumpton flashing past them in a hansom, I leave you to imagine.
"I am quite aware, Mora, that in confessing to all this I am shocking some of your most cherished prejudices. But where is the use of having prejudices unless you can have them pleasantly shocked now and again? Does not the process put you in mind of an electrical machine, and of the brass rods we used to touch so tremblingly when we were girls at school?
"It is almost worth while being poor for the sake of riding about in a hansom. A ride in a brougham or a victoria is the tamest of tame affairs in comparison. I had never been in a hansom before that evening when I went to see Mrs. Fildew, but I have been in one several times since--of course, with Clement to keep me company. How 'jolly' it is when you happen to have a good horse and a skilful driver! (The adjective may sound objectionable, dear Mora, but I can't hit on another just now that expresses my meaning half so clearly.) How quickly you get over the ground! How you dash in and out among carriages, carts, and busses, leaving them behind one after another! Everybody and everything seem to get out of your way. The wind blows in cheerily perhaps a few drops of rain dash against your face now and then, but you don't mind them in the least. You experience a sense of freedom, of brisk open-air enjoyment, such as no other mode of conveyance that I know of can give you. And then how cosey inside! Just room for two, and none to spare. But that doesn't matter in the least if your companion is some one you like to sit close to. I wonder whether it would be wrong, Mora, for you and me to be driven out in a hansom some afternoon by our two selves. But you are such a slave to Mrs. Grundy that I almost despair of being able to persuade you to join me in such an expedition.
"Here I am at the end of my paper and I have not introduced you to Mrs. Fildew. I must consequently defer that pleasure till I write to you again, which will be not later than the day after to-morrow. I have much to tell you yet. Pray let me hear from you by return, if only a word to say how your mother is progressing. I cannot tell you how lonely I feel while you are away.
"Your affectionate friend,
"Cecilia Collumpton."
Second Letter FromMISS COLLUMPTONin London toMiss Brownein the country.
"My Dearest Mora,-- . . . The close of my last letter left Clement and me in a hansom cab in the act of being driven to the lodgings of Mrs. Fildew. Clement told me that his mother had lately moved into fresh apartments no great distance from his studio. I cannot tell you how nervous I became as the moment of my introduction to Mrs. Fildew drew near. What if I should read in her eyes that she thought her son had chosen unwisely? It would not have mattered so much if Clement had not set such store by her opinion--if his love had been of that lukewarm kind which many grown-up sons have for their mother. But in this case it was different, and unless I were loved and liked by Clement's mother I should feel as if I possessed only half of Clement's heart.
"At length the cab stopped and my pulses beat faster than ever. Three minutes later I found myself in Mrs. Fildew's presence--found myself on my knees by her side, while her hands, that trembled a little, rested for a few moments on my hair and her eyes gazed anxiously and inquiringly into mine. Then she bent forward a little and pressed her lips to my forehead.
"'My boy has told me how much he loves you,' she said. 'But I welcome you here, not for his sake only, but for your own also. I often used to wish that Heaven had given me a daughter. At last my prayer has been answered.' Then she kissed me again, and after that I sat down close beside her, but she still kept possession of one of my hands and caressed it softly with hers.
"Mrs. Fildew is a pale and delicate-looking elderly lady, with a thin, worn face and a profusion of snow-white hair. When young she must have been very beautiful. I think I told you in my last letter that she has been a confirmed invalid for years. She cannot walk more than a few yards without great pain and difficulty. From the time she rises till the time she goes to bed she sits in a large easy-chair that runs on noiseless wheels, which Clement has had specially made for her. She can work the wheels with her hands, and so propel herself to any part of the room at will. She keeps one servant, a strong, middle-aged woman, who has been with her several years. Sometimes, on sunny afternoons, Mrs. Fildew and her chair are carried downstairs, and Martha takes her mistress for an airing up and down some of the streets where there is not much traffic, or as far as a certain florist's where they have fresh flowers in the window every morning.
"Once a week Clement comes with an open carriage and takes his mother for a drive into the country. The next time they go on one of these expeditions I am to go with them.
"Presently Martha brought in tea, which we drank out of quaint old biscuit-china, the cups being without handles, and the saucers excessively shallow. We had thin bread-and-butter, watercresses, sardines, damson jam, and a cake from the confectioner's. The tea itself was simply delicious--far superior to any that we ever have at home. The truth is, I suppose, that our servants don't know how to make tea properly; or else, which is quite as likely, they keep the best of it for themselves and only send us up what they leave. I don't think that I ever tasted watercresses before that afternoon; you have no idea how nice they are. To eat them is to be put in mind of country streamlets and all the sights and sounds that go with them--of hidden waterways that betray themselves by their babbling, and--But I 'loiter round my cresses.'
"This six-o'clock tea, with thin bread-and-butter and watercresses, is an 'institution' that I shall never despise again.
"When tea was over Clement had to go out on business, and Mrs. Fildew and I were left alone. Why do women seem all at once to become so confidential towards each other the moment there is no longer a man in the room? I say 'seem,' because such confidences are generally more apparent than real. Mrs. Fildew and I followed the universal rule. Although Clement was so dear to us, and although we talked of nothing in his absence that we might not have said freely before his face, yet the moment he had left the room a spell seemed taken off our tongues, and we both felt that we were going to enjoy a good long talk.
"I hope your situation is a comfortable one, my dear, and that you like it?' said Mrs. Fildew.
"I had to think for a moment, and call to mind what my situation was supposed to be before answering her that I liked it exceedingly.
"'Companion to a young lady, is it not? Yes. Well, I'm glad to hear that you are comfortable. Of course, you have nothing to do with cooking or the superintendence of housework?'
"'Nothing whatever, Mrs. Fildew.'
"'Do you know, my dear, I think that's rather a pity.'
"Why so, Mrs. Fildew?'
"'Because Clement is far from being a rich man, although, of course, there is no knowing what his talents may do for him in time to come, and it would be just as well that his wife should know how to manage and look after a small establishment without trusting too implicitly to her servants. But probably you had some training in such matters when you were a girl at home?'
"'Very little training of that kind,' I said rather bitterly. My face burned, and I felt humiliated by my ignorance.
"'Dear, dear! all young girls ought to be taught how to manage a house,' continued Mrs. Fildew, in that soft, low voice of hers, which seems as if it could never have spoken an unkind word to any one.
"'One is never too old to learn if one has a mind to do so, Mrs. Fildew,' I said.
"'Well spoken, my dear. The will to learn and a little perseverance will work wonders. I don't suppose that Clement will be able to afford more than one servant at first, and for twelve or fourteen pounds a year you can't expect to get a good cook, especially when she has to do the rest of the housework as well. Therefore it is all the more necessary that her mistress should be able to take an active part in all home matters. But I am afraid that you are underrating your knowledge. A woman who can roast a leg of mutton--or see it properly roasted--and who is not above beating up a pudding now and then, or turning out a little light pastry, need never be afraid of getting married.'
"'But, dear Mrs. Fildew, I can't do any of the things you mention,' I cried, with consternation. 'I never made a pudding or a bit of pastry in my life; and as for cooking a joint, I am afraid it would not be fit to send to table by the time I had done with it.'
"The dear old lady's busy fingers ceased their movements. She looked at me in silence for a moment, but I thought that her look seemed to say, 'Then, pray, young lady, what is there that you can do?'
"'People are generally what, they are taught to be,' I said, between laughing and crying. 'I cannot bake, or boil, or make preserves, but I know how to do one or two useless things. I can read Dante or Goethe in the originals. I can sketch from nature. I can play on the piano and the harp. People tell me that I can sing tolerably. I can drive, I can ride, and I can swim.'
"'Then, my dear, you are far too clever a young lady to enter a kitchen or look after the cooking of your husband's dinner. Clement ought to be, and no doubt is, very proud to think that he has won your heart; but you and he ought not to get married on less than a thousand a year.'
"I looked at Mrs. Fildew, in doubt whether her last speech was not meant as a sarcasm. But one glance into her dear face was enough to satisfy my mind on that point. I don't believe that she ever gave utterance to a sarcastic speech in her life. I am not aware, Mrs. Fildew, that I have expressed any anxiety to get married for ever such a long time to come. I am quite willing to wait--for years.'
"'Perhaps so, my dear, but Clement may not be possessed of your patience.'
"'But surely I shall have a voice in a matter of so much importance?'
"'Undoubtedly. But for all that, men generally contrive to get their own way in these things, as you will find.'
"I confess, Mora, that the thought of this early marriage frightens me. I ought to have bargained at the outset that it should not take place for a couple of years at the soonest. I know that you, with your strong mind, would say that it is not too late even now to 'put my foot down' and vow that I won't be married till I'm ready to be. But then, dear, I neither possess your strength of mind nor have you ever been in love, so that, all things considered, I'm afraid my resistance would be a very futile one. Methinks I hear you say, 'How humiliating of Cecilia to make such a confession!' Even so, sweet one.N'importe. I would not exchange my fetters for your freedom.
"'What a useless, good-for-nothing creature you must take me to be, Mrs. Fildew,' I said, glad to get away from the marriage question.
"'Indeed, my dear, but there is no such thought in my head. You have been brought up as if you were a young lady of fortune--that is all. And, now I come to think of it, I doubt very much whether Clement would allow his wife to trouble herself about kitchen arrangements or the proper cooking of a dinner. Men nowadays seem to think their wives are only made to be ornamental, and I suppose my boy will be no exception to the rule. When I was young things were different.'
"'I'll buy a cookery-book to-morrow,' I cried in desperation. 'It is never too late to learn.'
"Mrs. Fildew smiled at me, a little compassionately, as I thought.
"'It is never too late to make a good resolution,' she said. 'But if a young woman has not been trained up to housekeeping ways at home, it is not to be expected that she can take kindly to them when she grows up. I wouldn't bother about it if I were you, my dear. I dare say Clement will like you all the better for having been brought up as a fine lady.'
"But I kept my word, and next day I made myself the happy possessor of a cookery-book. My aunt never suspected that it was anything but a novel when I brought it out after luncheon. I read page after page of it, dipping here and there, till I had got a jumble of recipes mixed higgledy-piggledy in my brain, and was in a pitiable state of imbecility.
"Next morning I sought a private interview with Hannah, the cook, the result of which was that, in return for a certain consideration, she was to give me a lesson in the art of cookery of one hour's duration, each morning. I have had five lessons already; they are immense fun, and I can safely say that I never enjoyed my music-lessons half so much. You shall have a practical proof of the progress I have made as soon as you get back to Cadogan Place. We will have a little dinner 'all by our two selves,' as we used to say at school, every dish at which shall be cooked by your Cecilia. I have written out themenualready.
"Of course your comment on all this will be, 'Just like Cecilia--just like her, to waste time and money over some scheme that can never possibly be of any practical use either to herself or anybody else.' But don't you know, dear, that knowledge is power? Besides, one never can tell what may happen. Some day my husband may be a poor man, and then I shall be able to astonish him. By-the-bye, do you know what a roly-poly dumpling is? If you don't there is a treat in store for you. I made a monster one yesterday for the servants. I will make a little one for you and me when I get you back again.
"I don't think I have told you yet how Mrs. Fildew occupies her time. She mends old lace for a large emporium at the West End. The way in which she does it, so as to all but defy detection, is marvellous. It seems to me a charming occupation for a poor gentlewoman, combining in itself the practical and the æsthetical. I could sit and watch her for hours as she deftly takes up stitch after stitch and loop after loop till ragged leaf and frayed flower look as good as new.
"Clement had never talked to me much about his father, but from Mrs. Fildew I learned several particulars concerning him. That he was a gentleman born and a gentleman bred Mrs. Fildew was very particular in striving to impress on my mind. It appears that they were married in America, and there my Clement was born. Mr. Fildew, senior, it would seem, was so entirely a gentleman that it was never expected of him that he should do anything for a living. 'You know, dear, I am not a lady by birth,' said Mrs. Fildew, frankly; therefore, of course, it is only right and proper that I should work--in fact, I could not live without it. And then there is Clement; so that, altogether, we are very comfortable in our humble way.'
"Not knowing what to say, I said nothing.
"'My husband is from home just now,' continued Mrs. Fildew. 'If you had been here three days ago you would have seen him. Some old friend of his has come into a large property and has asked John to go down to his place and put it into something like order for him. Of course, this is not like any ordinary kind of work, or I should not have been willing for him to go. It is merely a little service rendered by one friend to another. My husband has been a gentleman all his life, and it would never do for him to lower himself to any commonplace drudgery now.'
"'I should very much like to see Mr. Fildew,' I said--and so I should. I think I can understand now why Clement hardly ever mentions his name.
"I don't expect him in town for two or three weeks, but when he does come Clement must bring you and introduce you to him. There is an aristocratic style, an air of distinction, about Mr. Fildew, which you will not fail to recognize at once. Clement has the same style, only in a lesser degree; but he will never be as handsome a man as his father.'
"Presently Clement came in, and then we had some music. I find that my boy,' as his mother fondly calls him, plays the violin. With that and the piano, and your Cecilia's thin soprano, the evening was gone far too quickly. It was a happy time. Ten o'clock brought a cab, and half an hour later I was at home. Goodnight and God bless you. More another day.
"Your affectionate friend, C. C."
One day, at a dinner at Sir Harry Yoxford's, among other people to whom Lord Loughton was introduced was a certain Mr. Wellclose, a lawyer, who had the charge of Sir Harry's legal business, together with that of various other great people of the neighborhood. Mr. Wellclose, a fussy, talkative, middle-aged man, who dearly loved a lord, contrived to seat himself next the earl in the smoking-room. He seemed to know everything about everybody and before the evening was over Lord Loughton had contrived to extract from him a considerable amount of information which might or might not be useful to him at some future time. "By-the-bye, Mr. Wellclose," said the earl, "are you at all acquainted with my next-door neighbor at Bourbon House?"
"I have had occasion to meet Mr. Orlando Larkins several times on business," said the attorney, "and a very pleasant young gentleman I have found him to be."
"I think I have heard somewhere that he doesn't get on very well with the county folk hereabouts? Probably his antecedents are against him."
"That's just it, my lord. His father was a celebrated pill-maker; and his name being rather an uncommon one, people can't forget the fact."
"What a pity it is that the world is not more good-natured! What on earth have a man's progenitors to do with the man himself?"
"My own sentiments exactly, if I may make so bold as to say so," said Mr. Wellclose, who always made a point of agreeing with his superiors. "I'm sure I've not the remotest idea who or what my great-grandfather was, and I shouldn't be a bit better man if I had. But as regards young Larkins, I was talking with him the other day, and he seems quite down-hearted. Of course, there are plenty of people about here--such as they are--who would only be too happy to visit him, or to see his feet under their mahogany, simply because he is rich; but the tip-top people, among whom it is the ambition of his life to mix, give him the cold shoulder, and no mistake. His name seems to cling to him wherever he goes. The poor fellow was telling me about his tour on the Continent a little while ago. Wherever he went people looked at him--or he fancied they did--and whispered to each other; and on one or two occasions some low cads at thetable d'hôteranged half a dozen pill-boxes in front of their plates, and made believe to swallow a bolus or two between every course, and so drove the poor fellow away."
"He must be rather foolishly sensitive about such matters."
"Well, he is. I don't think he can be said to possess a very strong mind at the best of times; but for all that he is a very generous-hearted, good-natured fellow, and I'm sorry for him."
"I've been told that his father left him tolerably well off."
"So he did, my lord--and all out of pills; or, rather, pills laid the foundation of his fortune, and lucky speculations did the rest. The son's income is as near twelve thousand a year as makes no matter. Then there are the two young ladies, his sisters, who will have twenty thousand apiece on their wedding-day."
"Why didn't you and I go into the pill-trade, eh, Wellclose?"
"Just the question I often put to Mrs. W., my lord."
"The only way for Larkins to get out of his difficulty is for him to marry and change his name to that of his wife."
"A capital idea, my lord, which I won't fail to suggest to him the next time I see him. Talking about matrimony reminds me that Mr. Larkins has an unmarried aunt--a younger sister of his mother--who also has twenty thousand pounds settled on her. Thirty-six years of age and twenty thousand pounds!" As he said these words with much unction the keen-eyed lawyer glanced up sharply in the earl's face.
"I'm afraid the lady must be too fastidious or she would surely have been snapped up long ago," said the earl, as he knocked the ash off his cigar.
"Perhaps so--perhaps an early disappointment or something of that kind. But, by Jove! what a prize, eh, my lord? What a galleon to capture and tow safely into the harbor of Matrimony!" Again he glanced up keenly into the earl's face.
"I tell you what, Wellclose," said his lordship, presently, "I think I must get you to introduce me to young Larkins one of these days."
"I shall be only too happy, my lord."
It fell out, however, that Lord Loughton was enabled to make the acquaintance of Mr. Larkins without the assistance of Mr. Wellclose. Twice a week the earl took a return-ticket between Brimley and Shallowford. The two places were thirty miles apart. At the latter town the earl was quite unknown, and it was to the post-office there that he had requested Clem to write to him, if necessary, under his old name of Mr. Fildew. Twice a week he went over to see if any letters were waiting for him. As he was coming back one day, about a week after the dinner at Sir Harry's, he found a gentleman in the carriage into which he got at Shallowford. At the next station some one came up to the window and addressed the stranger as Mr. Larkins.
As soon as the train was under way again the earl spoke. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Larkins of Bourbon House?" he said.
Mr. Larkins blushed, and stammered out a reply to the effect that he was the individual in question.
"I am the Earl of Loughton, and I am very glad to be able to make the acquaintance of my next-door neighbor. One can afford to be isolated in town, but that rule hardly holds good in the country." Then he held out his hand and wrung the young man's fingers very cordially. "Why did you not call upon me, Mr. Larkins, or at the very least send in your card?"
"I--I was afraid of being considered an intruder. The difference in our social status and all that, my lord."
"Pooh, pooh, my dear sir, I trust the age we live in is too enlightened to retain many antiquated prejudices of that kind. A gentleman is a gentleman all the world over, whether he be a duke or a ploughman."
"I assure you, my lord, that I have been snubbed and slighted in a great many quarters, simply because my father was--well, simply because he made his money in business."
"Can it be possible! Thank Heaven, there is no nonsense of that kind about me. If I like a man, I like him, and I never stop to ask him who was his grandfather."
"Ah, my lord, if all the aristocracy were only like you!"
"Oh, I don't want to set myself up as a pattern, but those are my sentiments. I think that you and I, being such near neighbors, ought to be good friends. What do you say to dropping in to-morrow morning about eleven, and having a bit of breakfast with me? I don't give dinner-parties, because I'm too poor. But I like to have somebody to breakfast with me."
Mr. Larkins was overwhelmed by the earl's condescension. At last the golden portals were about to open to his touch. Would the Viponds and the Cossingtons dare to snub him in future when they found him hand-and-glove with an earl? Mr. Larkins's trap was waiting at the station. It was one of the happiest half-hours of that young man's life when he was seen by the good people of Brimley driving Lord Loughton home to Laurel Cottage.
Mr. Larkins did not fail to put in an appearance next morning at the earl's breakfast-table. On the following day his lordship dineden familleat Bourbon House, on which occasion Orlando's sisters were introduced to him. They were two really pretty and well-mannered girls of seventeen and nineteen. There was a vein of simplicity and effusive good-nature running through the young Man's character that the earl was not slow to note, and appraise at its proper value. From that time forward the pill-maker's son and Lord Loughton were very frequently to be seen in each other's company. They drove out together, they rode together (in Orlando's carriages and on Orlando's horses), they played billiards together, they dined together, and they smoked together. Hardly a week passed without a hamper of wine or a box of cigars finding its way to Laurel Cottage. Fruit was sent nearly every day. A saddle-horse and a brougham were specially retained for the earl's own use. The quidnuncs of Brimley found much food for gossip anent these proceedings; but as the earl was notoriously poor and Mr. Larkins as notoriously rich, they rather admired the arrangement than otherwise. It was, of course, patent to everybody why the earl so persistently patronized the pill-maker's son, but none the less on that account were several doors now thrown open to Orlando which had heretofore been inexorably shut in his face. People began to discover virtues and good qualities in the young man the existence of which they had never suspected before. The Honorable Mrs. Templemore and Lady Wildman, neither of whom were rich and both of whom had several unmarried daughters, began to angle for him openly. When, a little later on, and at the earl's suggestion, he ventured to send out invitations for a garden-party, to be followed by a carpet-dance, nearly everybody who was asked came, and it was universally admitted to have been one of the most successful things of the season. From that time forward Mr. Larkins was accepted without question as "one of us."
All this suited well with the earl's grim and mordant humor. He laughed at Larkins and he laughed at those who, having at first tabooed him, were now willing to welcome him with open arms. He generally spent a solitary hour in his little smoking-room before going to bed, musing over the events of the day, and planning the morrow's campaign. At such times--his servants being all in bed, he indulged himself in a long clay pipe and a couple of glasses of hot brandy-and-water. The brandy and the pipe, together with a supply of the strong tobacco which he used to smoke during his evenings at the Brown Bear, were all kept under lock and key, in company with the worn and shabby pouch which had done him such good service in days gone by. It amused him at such times to think how people must talk about him, and he acknowledged to himself that he liked being talked about. His coming had caused quite a commotion among the stagnant circles of Brimley and its neighborhood. His sayings and doings, his habits and mode of life, supplied an unfailing topic of conversation at a hundred dinner-tables and twice as many tea-tables. He was already acquiring a reputation for eccentricity. It was a reputation that suited him, and he determined to cultivate it.
It was not till the lapse of two months after his arrival at Brimley that he went up to London to see his wife and son. He dressed himself for the occasion in a suit of sober tweed, and left behind him the gold watch and chain which a Brimley tradesman had only been too happy to press upon him, and the diamond ring that Larkins had made him a present of. From the moment he got out of the train at King's-Cross till the moment he got into it on his return he was to be plain John Fildew again. He quite enjoyed the masquerade, and chuckled to himself several times in the cab before he was set down at the corner of Oxford Street. Clem had apprised him of the change in Mrs. Fildew's lodgings. When he walked into his wife's sitting-room without knocking, that lady stared at him for a moment in utter surprise, and then said, "Have you not mistaken the room, sir?"
"Why, Kitty, dear, don't you know me?" he asked, and then he crossed the room and kissed his astonished wife.
"How was it likely I should know you, John? You are not a bit like your dear old self," and with that she began to cry.
Clement, when he came in, was almost as much surprised, but he showed it in a different way. The change in his father was so thorough and so striking that he could hardly believe him to be the same man who had left them only a few weeks previously and that evening he felt a degree of respect for him such as he had never experienced before. He had heard his mother insist a thousand times on the fact of his father being a gentleman bred and born, but for the first time in Clem's experience he looked the character. The earl dilated in a hazy but grandiloquent sort of way about his new prospects and his new mode of life. It was not to be expected that he should condescend to particulars; and as both his wife and son knew that he had a horror of being questioned, they listened to all he had to say, and troubled him with no inconvenient queries. Clement was well content that matters should remain as they were, but Mrs. Fildew, in addition to the grief she felt at her husband's absence, was somewhat fearful in her mind lest her "dear John" should have compromised his dignity by engaging in work that was derogatory to his status as a gentleman.
Mr. Fildew's stay in London was only from the dusk of one afternoon till the evening of the next. His avocations were of such a pressing and important nature, he said, that it was impossible for him to make a longer stay just then. In the state of his wife's health--a subject respecting which he was anxious for more reasons than one--there was little apparent change since he left London. She was certainly no better, but neither did there seem any perceptible alteration for the worse. He longed to go and spend an evening with his old cronies at the Brown Bear, but after mature consideration he deemed it better not to do so. He looked and felt so changed that his old friends would hardly welcome him as being any longer one of themselves. Besides, for anything he knew to the contrary, some of them might some day find themselves at Brimley and encounter him there but if they were not made acquainted with the alteration in his appearance, he flattered himself that, even so, they would hardly recognize him. It was decidedly to his interest to give the Brown Bear as wide a berth as possible.
Great, therefore, was the earl's surprise and chagrin when, as he was walking down the platform in search of a smoking-carriage on his return journey, he nearly stumbled over Mr. Cutts, the landlord of the Brown Bear. "I really beg your pardon," exclaimed the earl, before he had time to recognize the man. At the sound of the familiar voice Cutts stared, and then the earl saw that it was too late to retreat. Grasping the landlord by the hand, and making believe that he was delighted to see him, he hurried him off to the refreshment bar. In order to keep Cutts from questioning him, which might have been inconvenient, he kept on questioning Cutts. Everybody, it appeared, with one exception, was quite well, and going on much as usual. "Of course you remember Pilcher?" said Cutts. "Ah, well, he's come to grief, poor devil, and quite suddenly too. It seems that a scamp of a brother persuaded him to accept a bill for a big amount. The brother bolted, Pilcher couldn't meet the bill, some other creditors came down on him, and his stock was seized. Meanwhile his wife died, and the result of the blooming business was that poor Pilcher was turned adrift on the world without a penny to bless himself with, and with three young 'uns, all under eight, to call him father."
"Poor Pilcher, indeed! But, of course, you did something for him at the Brown Bear?"
"Yes--what we could. Couldn't do much, you know. Sent the hat round and got about six pounds--enough to bury his wife, I dare say. He shouldn't have been such a fool. I'd sooner trust a stranger than a relation any day."
"And where's Pilcher now?"
"Can't say. Somewhere about the old quarter, no doubt."
"Ah, well, I am sorry for him, poor devil. Goodnight. Shall see you again before long." And with that the earl made a rush for his carriage.
Next day he wrote to Clement, asking him to hunt up Pilcher's address. A week later "poor Pilcher" received by post a twenty-pound note simply endorsed, "From a friend."
We must now go back a little space in our history.
When Lord Loughton, on the occasion of his first dinner at Bourbon House, was introduced to Miss Tebbuts, the aunt of Mr. Larkins, he did not forget what he had been told respecting that lady. "Wellclose said she was thirty-six, but she looks at least half a dozen years older than that," muttered the earl to himself. "But twenty thousand pounds can gild with youth and beauty a demoiselle of even that mature age." And his lordship became at once very attentive to Miss Tebbuts.
Hannah Tebbuts was sister to Orlando's mother. In conjunction with another sister, also unmarried, she had for several years kept a select seminary for young ladies in a little town in one of the midland counties. When her sister married Mr. Larkins that gentleman had not risen to fame and fortune. He was still brooding over the Pill that was ultimately to make his name known to the ends of the earth. Even then Hannah Tebbuts saw but little of her married sister, and she saw still less of her when Mrs. Larkins went to live in a big mansion in the outskirts of London.
By and by Mrs. Larkins died, and after that a dozen years passed away without Miss Hannah catching even a passing glimpse of her rich relations in London. But at the end of that time there came a message for her to go up to town with the least possible delay. Her famous brother-in-law was dangerously ill, and he had asked that she might be sent for to go and nurse him. Miss Hannah was less loath to go because she had lately lost the sister with whom she had lived for so many years, and had, in consequence, given up her school. Once in London, there she remained till Mr. Larkins died. His illness was a long and tedious one, but through it all Miss Hannah nursed her brother-in-law with the most devoted care and attention. As a reward for her services, and a token of the high esteem in which he held her, the sick man, by a codicil added to his will only a few days before his death, bequeathed to her the very handsome legacy of twenty thousand pounds.
Never was a simple-minded woman more puzzled what to do with a legacy. Her tastes were so inexpensive, and her mode of life so quiet and sedate, that she could find no use for the money. All she could do was to place the amount in the hands of her nephew, begging him to allow her a hundred a year out of it, and invest the remainder for her in any way he might think best.
Miss Tebbuts had never been handsome, but no one who studied her face could doubt her amiability and good-temper. There was nothing fashionable, nothing modish, about her. Her gown was after a style that had been in vogue some dozen years previously. She wore elaborate caps, and little sausage-like curls, now beginning to turn gray. She was of a retiring disposition, and her greatest trouble was having to fill the position of hostess at Bourbon House to the numerous strangers her nephew took there. Mr. Wellclose was wrong when he surmised that she might possibly be the victim of some early disappointment. Miss Tebbuts had never had an offer in her life, and if she had ever entertained any hopes in that direction she had trampled them under foot long ago, so that nothing was now left of them save a faint, sweet memory, like the sweetness of crushed flowers exhaled from apot pourri. And this was the lady to whom John Marmaduke Lorrimore began to pay very marked attention.
He sat next her at the dinner-table, he made his way to her side in the drawing-room, and he favored her with more of his conversation than any one else. After a little while he began to call two or three times a week and take her for drives in the basket-carriage, with little Mabel Larkins to play propriety. He was seen with her at the Brimley spring flower-show, and at the garden-party, of which mention has already been made, his attentions to her were the theme of public comment. In short, people began to talk in all directions, and before long everybody knew for a fact, or thought they did, that the earl and Miss Tebbuts were going to make a match of it. This notoriety was just what the earl wanted. On one point he was particularly careful: he never spoke a word of love to Miss Tebbuts, nor gave utterance to any sentiments that could possibly be construed into the faintest shadow of a declaration.
One day Orlando said, smilingly, "If you play your cards properly, aunt, you may yet be Countess of Loughton."
Miss Tebbuts colored up. "But I don't want to be Countess of Loughton," she said, "and you don't know what you are talking about. Make your mind easy on one point: Lord Loughton and I will never be more than friends."
"Such attentions as his can have but one meaning."
"You talk like a very young man, Orlando. According to your theory, no gentleman can pay a lady a few simple attentions without having certain designs imputed to him."
"A few simple attentions, aunt! Pardon me, but they seem to me most marked attentions."
"Well, whatever they may seem, they won't end in matrimony; on that point you may make yourself quite sure."
Orlando was terribly disappointed, but did not dare to show it. What a splendid thing it would have been to have an aunt who was a countess and an uncle who was an earl! Such a dream was almost too blissful to contemplate. And yet he firmly believed it might become a glorious reality if only his aunt were not so foolishly weak-minded. If she did not care greatly for such a marriage on her own account, she ought to remember what was due to her nephew and nieces. Never could they hope that such an opportunity would offer itself again.
One day the earl was surprised by a visit from the dowager countess, or, rather, he was not surprised. He had quite expected to see her before long. Certain rumors had reached her ears, and she had driven over from Ringwood to satisfy herself as to their truth or falsity. Mr. Flicker was with her, as monumentally severe as ever.
The countess had not seen Lord Loughton since his transformation. She remembered him as a shabby, buttoned-up individual, with long straggling hair, and patched boots, and a generally mouldy and decayed appearance, who was known to the world as "Mr. Fildew." She saw before her a good-looking, well-preserved, elderly gentleman, clean shaved and carefully dressed, and of a spruce and military aspect. This personage called himself Lord Loughton, and the countess recognized at once his likeness to certain traditional types of the Lorrimore family. So far she was gratified. It was evident that the new earl was not likely to prove such a discredit to his connections as had at one time seemed but too probable.
"Welcome to Laurel Cottage, aunt," said the earl, as he assisted her ladyship to alight. "I thought I should have had the pleasure of seeing you here long ago."
The countess vouchsafed no word in reply, but glanced round at the house and the grounds, and then, turning to Flicker, she said, "Quite a little paradise."
"But without a peri to do the honors of it," remarked the earl, with a chuckle and a tug at his mustache.
"Ah, I'm coming to that part of the business presently," said the dowager, in her most acidulated tones. "And now, have you a place, where I can sit down?"
The earl led the way into his little sitting-room. The countess followed him, and Mr. Flicker brought up the rear. The countess seated herself on an ottoman, and, putting up her glasses, took a quiet survey of the room. "Rather different from the sort of home you have been used to of late years--eh?" she said, sharply.
"Yes, for an earl I can't say that I'm badly lodged," sneered her nephew.
"You are lodged far beyond your deserts, sir, I do not doubt."
"The Lorrimore family have generally been fortunate in that respect."
"I did not come here to bandy personalities with you." The earl bowed. "I came in consequence of a certain rumor that has reached my ears." The dowager paused, but apparently the earl had nothing to say. He was stroking his chin, and gazing through his glass at a Parian Venus bracketed on the opposite wall.
"A most absurd rumor," continued the countess, with added asperity, "but one, nevertheless, that I feel called upon to investigate. May I ask you, sir, whether it is true that you are going to be married to a creature of the name of--of--what is the creature's name, Mr. Flicker?"
"Tebbuts, my lady. Hannah Tebbuts."
"Just so. Tebbuts. I knew it was some horrid word. Pray, sir, is there any foundation for the rumor in question?"
The earl withdrew his gaze from the Venus, and, producing his handkerchief, he began to polish his eyeglass with slow elaboration. "May I ask, madam, by whose authority I, a man fifty-three years old, am catechised as though I were a schoolboy caughtin delicto?"
The countess fairly gasped for breath. Mr. Flicker raised his hands and turned up his eyes till nothing but the dingy whites of them were visible. "Catechise you, indeed! I am here, sir, because I want to know the truth, and the truth I must have," said the ruffled countess. "If this rumor be correct, you have been obtaining money under false pretences, and acting as no honorable man would act."
The earl had actually the audacity to lean back in his chair and laugh. "Really, aunt," he said, "you amuse me. A little more, and your language would be actionable. Nobody could tell you better than Mr. Flicker here that, even if I were to marry to-morrow, I should not be doing that which you assert I should be. The agreement between us was that I was to be paid a certain quarterly stipend as long as I remained unmarried. There was no absolute promise on my part that I would never marry. But the moment I do marry, if I ever do, the stipend will cease. Where are the false pretences that your ladyship accuses me of?"
For a few moments the dowager could not speak. Then she said--and her head by this time was nodding portentously--"I always asserted from the first that you were nothing better than a--a--"
"Common swindler, madam," remarked the earl, pleasantly. "You always did say so. I give you credit for that much. But I remember also that long ago your epithets were more remarkable for their vigor than for their accuracy. Consequently, I have learned to appraise them at their proper value."
"This man is insufferable," exclaimed the countess. Mr. Flicker tried to look sympathetic, but only succeeded in looking a little more miserable than before. "May I ask you, sir, to give me a plain answer to a plain question? Is it, or is it not, your intention to marry?"
"Now we are becoming business-like, which is much better than being personal," said the earl, placably. "A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer. I have no present intention of getting married; but still, more remote contingencies than that have come to pass in the history of the world."
"A--h! then it is true that this creature has designs on you."
"If by 'this creature' your ladyship means Miss Tebbuts, I say emphatically no. Allow me to add that Miss Tebbuts is a lady, and incapable of forming designs against any man."
"A lady, forsooth! Her father, or her brother, or somebody connected with her, was a common quack."
"Her brother-in-law created a pill and made a fortune. Had he been a great captain, and killed ten thousand men, a grateful nation would have erected a statue to him; but seeing that he only invented a pill, and probably saved ten thousand lives, society votes him vulgar, and passes him by on the other side. What a strange, topsy-turvy state of things we have got to at the end of our nineteen centuries of practical religion!"
The countess looked mutely at Flicker, but her look plainly said, "Surely this fellow must be crazy." Mr. Flicker responded by a melancholy shake of the head. "Are we to infer from this rigmarole, sir, that the report is nothing more than a foolishcanard, and that you have no more intention of getting married than I have?"
"Well, I will hardly venture to go as far as that. You see, aunt, Miss Tebbuts is a very charming lady, and her charms are enhanced by a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. At five per cent. that fortune would yield an annual income of one thousand pounds."
"Yes, but there would be two of you to keep out of it. As the case stands now, you have six hundred a year, and only yourself to keep."
"I assure your ladyship that Miss Tebbuts's tastes are of the most simple and inexpensive kind. She is one of those admirable women who would live on a hundred a year and save fifty of it."
"Have you no more respect for your family, sir, than to marry a quack doctor's sister?"
"Have my family no more respect for me than, out of an aggregate income of twenty thousand a year, to expect me to live on, and be satisfied with, a paltry six hundred? Are you aware, madam, that the Earl of Loughton's boots let water in, and that he hasn't enough money in his purse to pay for a pair of new ones?"
"So, sir, we are getting sit your motives by degrees. You threaten us with this marriage unless we agree to buy you off."
The earl laughed silently. "I threaten you with nothing I merely put before you a plain statement of facts, and leave you to draw what inference you please. Remember, pray, that it is you who have come to me and not I who have appealed to you. Take back your six hundred a year, madam, if it so please you; I shall not want for bread and cheese, I dare say."
For the first time since the discussion began, Mr. Flicker now spoke. "If I remember rightly, my lord, the amount of income suggested by you at our first meeting was twelve hundred a year--just double the sum you are now in receipt of? If the family, taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case, could see their way to fall in with your first suggestion, is there not a possibility that these disquieting rumors respecting a presumptive matrimonial alliance might prove to be without the slightest foundation in fact?"
"In other words, Flicker, would not a golden bullet bring down thiscanardat once and forever?"
The ghost of a smile flitted across the lawyer's hard-set face. "My meaning precisely, my lord."
"Well, golden bullets are wonderful things, and really, now I come to think of it, I shouldn't be surprised if, in the present case, one of them, properly aimed, were to have the effect hinted at by you."
The countess glowered at the lawyer as though she could scarcely believe the evidence of her ears. "Mr. Flicker," she said, in her most imperious way, "may I ask by whose authority you have dared even to hint at a course which, if carried out, would be a disgrace to everybody concerned?"
"My lord," said Mr. Flicker, turning to the earl, "may I take the liberty of asking to be permitted to have five minutes' private conversation with her ladyship?"
"Certainly, Flicker, certainly. I'll go and have a cigarette in the garden. Touch the bell and send the servant for me when you are ready." And with that the earl strolled leisurely out. As he was shutting the door he heard the countess say with much emphasis, "That man will be the death of me."
At the end of ten minutes a servant came in search of him. He found the lawyer alone. "What has become of her ladyship?" he asked.
"She has gone to her carriage. She is a great age, and the interview has somewhat tried her strength. I have, however, much pleasure in informing your lordship that--that, in fact--"
"That our wild duck is to be shot with a golden bullet after all. Is not that so?"
"It is so, my lord."
"Twelve?"
"Twelve it is, my lord. After this, I presume we need not disquiet ourselves in the least as to any matrimonial intentions on the part of your lordship?"
"Not in the least, Flicker. I give you my word of honor on that score. As I said once before, I am not a marrying man, and am in no want of a wife."
Mr. Flicker rose and pushed back his chair. "We are quite prepared to take your lordship's word in the matter. I shall have the honor of forwarding you a check as soon as I get back to town."
The earl expressed his thanks, and was going with Flicker to the door when the latter said, "Pardon me, my lord, but I think it would be as well not to let the countess see you again to-day. There is a tendency to irritation of the nervous system, and I am afraid that your presence would hardly act as a sedative."
The earl laughed. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "Anyhow, give my love to her, and tell her that I hope to visit her before long at Ringwood."
Mr. Flicker shook his head, as implying that he knew better than to deliver any such message. Then the earl shook hands with him, and they parted.