CHAPTER VII.
“Six inches less round the body, as I’m a sinner! Six inches less, Mr. Jericho, and I last took your measure only six weeks ago.” Thus spoke Breeks, the tailor, holding his strip of parchment to the eye of the attenuated Jericho. “I never did know such a shrink.”
“I’m glad of it,” said Jericho with dignity. “I was fast losing my figure, Breeks.”
“Oh dear, no!” said Breeks. “A little stout, to be sure; but noways out of character. Some people’s only made to be stout, and nothing else. And now in six weeks six inches! Why, in a twelvemonth, do you know what that’ll come to? Eh?”
“You will measure me without observation, Mr. Breeks,” said Jericho, “or not measure me at all.”
The Man made of Money shows his want of feeling.
The Man made of Money shows his want of feeling.
The Man made of Money shows his want of feeling.
The faintest, briefest “Oh!” rounded the mouth of Breeks, and with tenderest touch he proceeded in his task. It is at least one of the humanising beauties of credit that it begets familiarity. Debt despises the distance of ceremony. Now Breeks had for many years made for Jericho; and Jericho was never above the tailor’s joke. There might be a reason for this. Breeks was never in a hurry to push. His bills were like oak-leaves; new ones always grew under the old. (A pretty thought this; and quite at the service of all tailorhood.)
Breeks took his measures in silence. He knew that Jericho
was become rich, and therefore felt that he, the rich man’s tailor, must become dull and respectful. Ready money was, after all, better than a ready laugh. “Shall I allow anything, sir, for”—and Breeks held the body of Jericho as in a parchment bridle—“anything for stoutness? It may come, sir, when you least expect it?”
“A little, just a little, Breeks. Though I don’t think I’m a bit thinner than—than many people?”
“Not a bit, sir: and then, sir, where natur’ leaves us, we can always lay hold upon art. Flesh”—said Breeks, waving his arm—“flesh may fall away, but paddin’s contin’ally with us.”
“Just so! and therefore, Breeks, you may give a little puff—just the smallest roundness”—
“I know, sir; just an ounce or two more flesh in the waistcoast. It shall be done, sir. I wish you a humble good morning, sir,” and Breeks bowed in excess of homage.
“Breeks,”—a thought had come upon Jericho,—“Breeks, are you married?” Breeks stared: for how many times, years gone by, had Mrs. Breeks herself opened the door to Mr. Jericho!
Breeks delicately resented this forgetfulness of the man of money. With a low bow, the tailor replied—“I am notyeta widower, Mr. Jericho.”
“Ha! To be sure. Humph”—mused Jericho—“then it’s out of the question; otherwise, Breeks, I might have served you.”
“Mrs. Breeks, Mr. Jericho,”—replied the tailor,—“is toodootiful a wife to stand in the light of her husband. Whatever it is, may I be so bold as to say, mention it?”
“Not now—no matter—another time. Go,” said Jericho; and the tailor, with an awe of the sudden dignity of money—an awe he would not confess to—shrank from the dressing-room.
“Here’s a change! After all, there’s no such paddin’ for human natur’ as Bank-notes!” Now this is what Breeks declared to himself outside the door; and again and again repeated as he stept onward from Jericho’s house. Indeed, so intent was he upon the felicitous thought that—with a strange self-delusion—he avowed to his wife, delighted by her husband’s wit and courage, that he flung the words—hard and hot like a thunderbolt—“in Jericho’s face.” And the elevated tailor almost thought as much. Nevertheless, for Jericho’s face, truth meekly supplies Jericho’s knocker.
The waistcoat that six weeks ago had wrapt Jericho, lay on the ground. How wide and large it looked! An expanded cere-cloth of perished flesh! How much of him—of him, Jericho—was once in that waistcoat that was now—where? It could not be possible that the bank in his bosom was supplied at the cost of his fleshly substance? He was not paying himself away transmuted into paper? Pooh! Nonsense! He never felt better; never felt so hard and firm. Nevertheless, he looked upon the waistcoat as upon an opened book, written with mortal meanings. And then again he felt assured his fleshly store didnotsupply his money, and then—he determined to measure his waist, and in exactest balance—unknown to all men—to weigh himself every morning. The first part of the discipline he would immediately commence. Whereupon, with a silken lace he encompassed his chest, snipping close where both ends joined. Scarcely had he finished the operation, when light, yet peremptory fingers, tapped at the door. “May I come in, love?” It was the voice of Mrs. Jericho.
“Certainly,” said Jericho; “what do you want, Sabilla, my dear?”
Let us endeavour to explain this mutual familiarity. Thetruth is, in a very soft moment Jericho had murmured to his wife this honey-sweet intelligence—He knew no bounds to his wealth! Whereupon, with a responsive burst of sympathy, Mrs. Jericho declared that, in such case, she saw no end to his greatness. We have said that Mrs. Jericho was a woman of great imagination. Instantaneously she beheld herself upon the topmost peak of the Mountains of Millions; whose altitude is just ten thousand thousand times higher than the Mountains of the Moon. So high that the biggest pearls in the very oldest coronets appeared to Mrs. Jericho no bigger than mustard-seed. With boundless riches she instantly felt boundless ambition. Mrs. Jericho had ever made her best curtsey to the power of wealth: but with the unexpected Plutus as her guest, she was suddenly rapt, sublimated. The Lady Macbeth of a money-box.
“Solomon,”—never until his day of riches had even his own wife called him Solomon—“make haste: you are wanted. Something very particular—a great proposal—vital to us—all we could wish.”
“Who is it, my dear? What’s it about?” asked Jericho with dull composure.
“I have already told you,”—said Mrs. Jericho in a deep, organ note—“that you may fill the world. Youshallfill it.” Jericho rubbed his chin; then—he could not help it—looked askance upon the all-wide, cast-off waistcoat. “Make haste, and meet me in the drawing-room.” Saying this, Mrs. Jericho, in all her natural pomp, departed.
Whilst Jericho finishes his toilette, making really the most of himself, let us proceed to the drawing-room. Miss Agatha Pennibacker never looked prettier: she is neatly, gracefully attired in morning muslin web; and stands for the moment looking down with full eyes upon the cup of a flower, into which, with pouting lips, she idly blows. And who could think that that little flower should reflect such a rosy flush upon the face of Agatha? Perhaps, however, it is not all the flower: it may be, that the presence of Sir Arthur Hodmadod, who stands some way apart, half twirling a chair in the hollow of one hand, andwith a smile showing all his line teeth to the simple Agatha,—perhaps, the baronet has at least a share of the blush with the scarlet anemone.
“I am delighted to hear, my dear madam, that you suffered no fatigue—took no cold,” very tenderly observes the baronet—“beauty is a jewel—when I say a jewel, of course I mean a flower—that sometimes suffers from the night.”
“But, Sir Arthur—it was so fine, you recollect! Do you not remember the brilliancy of the moon that, you observed, looked like a new nun that had just taken the veil; and surely—canyou forget”—asks the emphatic Agatha—“the beautiful compliment you paid to the stars?”
“I assure you, now, that’s just like me—I do,” replies the modest man. “Haven’t a notion.”
“Oh, you said—I recollect it so well,” says the earnest creature, raising her liquid eyes—“you said that the stars were the diamonds of the poor.”
“That’s very like me: but I am so liable to forget. Still, I should have sworn to the thought anywhere.”
Thus may man commit unconscious perjury. For, be it at once known that it was Candituft who, in his large benevolence, gave the stars to the poor man for his jewels: a sort of liberality Candituft was very prone to, for it in no way impoverished himself.
“You are aware, dear madam,” said Sir Arthur, a little abruptly, “that in the days of chivalry, it was the custom for ladies to be leeches. You know, when I say leeches, I don’t of course mean the nasty things in ponds, but surgeons. Then every lady-love dressed her own knight. Of course, I mean his wound.”
“To be sure; I’ve read it all very often. Yes”—and Agatha looked suddenly devoted—“in those dear olden times women fulfilled their mission, and were leeches. We shall never see those days again!”
“Suppose we try,” said Hodmadod, handing a chair to Agatha, dropping into one himself, and drawing close to the fluttered young lady, whose timid eye now and then turned tothe door. “What do you think of that hand, dearest Miss Agatha?” and Sir Arthur gracefully presented his open palm.
“Oh! gracious!” cried the young lady, flinging away the anemone, clasping her hands, and looking piteous sorrow. Wherefore? The hand had been blistered; and a little wound—Miss Agatha might have covered it with a guinea, if she had had the coin and the thought about her—lay in the palm.
“Your candid opinion, sweet girl? In its present wounded state—when I say wounded, of course I mean it’s quite as good as ever—I couldn’t offer the hand to a lady?”
“Dear me!” cried Agatha, “what a question! How should I know? But how did it happen?”
“Why, you see, not used to the sort of thing, it was the hay-fork; when I say a hay-fork, I think I may venture to observe”—and here the handsome baronet looked in the glowing face of Agatha, and smiled with all his might—“the dart of Cupid.”
“Dear me!” and Agatha looked at the hurt, with evidently no thought of the figurative weapon that had caused it—“dear me! it must give you dreadful pain.”
“Dreadful! that is, of course, great pleasure. Now, dear young lady, I want you to be my leech.”
“La! Sir Arthur; we don’t live in such times, you know;” and Agatha was delighted.
“As I am determined to offer this hand with all my heart in it—when I say all my heart I mean my title—to a young lady whom you know, and I believe very much respect—as upon that resolution I am a perfect rock—when I say a rock, I mean I am hard upon being happy—why then—”
“I see exactly what you mean, Sir Arthur,” said Agatha, to the rescue.
“That’s delightful. That’s a true woman who, when a man has only half a meaning, supplies the other half. It’s that that makes the full circle of the wedding-ring. When I say the wedding-ring, of course I mean”—
“I know,” cried Agatha quickly.
“Well, dear Miss Pennibacker, will you undertake the cure, for the lady you are best acquainted with?”
“I’m sure I—I’d do anything in such a case to serve any lady. But hadn’t I better call mamma? She’s a beautiful surgeon! Oh, what a leech she’d have been in those sweet old times. Yes, I’d better call mamma;” and, like a startled antelope, the maiden bounded from the room.
Sir Arthur Hodmadod, left to himself, incontinently walked up to a mirror. It was, at the worst, his old resource. To him a looking-glass was capital company. It always brought before him the subject he loved best; a subject he never grew tired of; a subject that, contemplate it as he would, like every other truly great work, revealed some hitherto undiscovered excellence. Thus, in a very few seconds, Sir Arthur was so intently fixed upon the well-known, yet ever new production before him; was so profoundly satisfied with the many merits appealing to his impartial judgment, that he heard not the door open; heard not the soft footsteps of two ladies.—Sir Arthur, in the intensity of his study, was wholly unconscious of the approach of Miss Monica Pennibacker and her very recent, and very fast friend, Miss Candituft. Monica was about to break in upon the grateful meditation of the baronet, when Miss Candituft raised her eloquent forefinger. This gesture was followed by nods and smiles; and Monica, with sudden knowledge of their mysterious import, jerked her head, and laughed in answer; and without a word, but with a huge enjoyment of the jest, quitted the ground.
Sir Arthur is still at the glass, and Miss Candituft sinks upon a sofa. The cold, calm face of the lady very nearly approached the face of the gentleman in the mirror; nevertheless, so fixed was he upon his subject, that the intrusion failed to rouse him. Miss Candituft caught the reflected features of the baronet; and though she felt all the force of their vacancy; though she thought she despised that handsome mask of man more than ever; she felt stir within her remorseless thoughts of vengeance. In that stern moment, she fixed the Baronet’s fate. He, poor victim! with all his soul on tiptoe walking the outline of his rightwhisker, he knew not what awaited him.—He knew not that behind him, sat a weak woman who had determined to snatch him from himself; to carry him away, whether he would or not; to hurry him to a venerable edifice; and then and there rivet on him a chain for life. And this, it is our faith, is a sentence often passed in silence on the unsuspecting sufferer: a sentence pronounced in self-confidence in play-house boxes, in ball-room corners; possibly, even in cathedral pews. The judge, all outward smiles and tenderness, has thoughts of a life-long sentence at heart. How beautiful that it should be so! To our imagination how much more delicious the simple, balmy flower, when we know that it smiles so sweetly, and to all appearance so unconsciously of the wedding-ring gold, so very deep below.
“Well, I do look well—devilish well to-day,” said Sir Arthur to the baronet in the glass. “I don’t think I ever saw myself look better. Handsome—when I say handsome, I mean quite a butcher. Miss Candituft,” cried Sir Arthur, suddenly startled by the vision.
“I didn’t speak! I didn’t say a word—did I?” cried Hodmadod. “I don’t think I spoke. Eh?”
“Not a word,” answered the lady; “not a syllable; it was only ‘the mind, the music breathing from his face.’ What a shame it is you should be so handsome, Sir Arthur. Really, you go in great danger. You’ll be carried off by some band of desperate women, and afterwards raffled for; you’ll be married some day in spite of your screams. By the way, Sir Arthur,”—and Caroline fixed the baronet with her cold, full look—“What bringsyouhere?”
“Oh, friendship. That is, when I say friendship, I”—
“Yes; the old meaning. Well, you always had an admirable taste, Sir Arthur. I must say that; an admirable taste, even before your looking-glass. Dear me!”—and she suddenly rose and crossed to the window—“quite a garden here. Well, I have often wondered what fools flowers were, to grow in London: I mean—but Sir Arthur, of course, you know what I mean.” And saying this, Miss Candituft stept upon the verandah; andfor a time, there is no doubt of it, divided her admiration between flowers and music; the geraniums about her, and a barrel organ below her.
The next minute, and Agatha returned with even a deeper flush in her face—with a more vivacious sparkle in her eye—with a quicker tremor in her voice. To be made love to by a baronet! For the suspicion had, during her long absence, strengthened into assurance. Great had been her growth of heart, large her addition of knowledge, in the few minutes employed to pass to her room, and to bring together every kind of imaginable anodyne; every sort of balsamic remedy.
“My dear Miss Agatha,” cried Hodmadod pretty loudly, that Miss Candituft might have the fullest benefit of his intonation; “my dear lady, I blush for this trouble: when I say, I blush I—I really don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t name it, Sir Arthur. I couldn’t disturb mamma; still I—I wish I had, for upon my word and honour, I don’t know what to do. Oh dear! it is very bad,” and again Agatha glanced at the baronet’s abraded hand.
“Dear me! This is the thing—the very thing,” and Hodmadod took up a card of court-plaister; a healing substance so very rare, and requiring such nice wisdom to prescribe it, that of course the baronet had never thought of the remedy until produced by the anxious maid before him.
“Well, Sir Arthur, I thought that possibly might do: dear me! why didn’t you think of it before? What you must have suffered!” said Agatha with thoughts of pain distressing her pretty face.
“The fact is, I had the misfortune, that is the delight to receive the wound”—Miss Candituft unconsciously tore a camellia to bits as she listened—“in the most beautiful society; and in that society I said to myself, it shall be healed. When I say healed”—
“It will be quite well to-morrow,” said Agatha very earnestly; and now she cast an eye at the wound, measuring its smallness, and with a pair of scissors cut the plaister to the diameter of thehurt. When she had delicately rounded a piece the size of a shilling; trimming and trimming it as though it was to her impossible to make too nice an adjustment; she gently laid it on the fingers of the baronet, at the same time, with the prettiest grace and humility, dropping a curtsey.
Sir Arthur Hodmadod looked smilingly at Agatha, and then at the round black patch lying on his fingers.—“My dear madam, you must breathe upon it.”
“Oh dear no! Not at all! Certainly not,” cried Agatha.
Sir Arthur, holding the little patch by the extreme edges of his finger and thumb-nail, presented it to the lips of Agatha. “Breathe, my dear madam; when I say breathe, I mean waft a—a—”
“I couldn’t think of such a thing,” cried Agatha, retreating.
“The whole charm—the spell—when I say the charm, I mean the medicine—is in the breath that warms it. My dear Agatha,” and Sir Arthur attempted to encircle the timid creature’s waist.
“How very foolish!” cried Agatha, still shrinking. “How very foolish!” And then she made her little mouth into the smallest bud, and blew quickly twice or thrice. “How very foolish!”
“Now, I may call the cure almost complete,” said Sir Arthur, and he placed the patch upon the wound. “Upon my life! Beautiful! Delicious!” and he cast his eyes rapturously towards the ceiling.
“Has it done you so much good already, Sir Arthur? I’m so glad! Such a simple thing, too.”
“My dearest girl, it is the delightful magic of your breath. I feel it—from this little patch, it goes through and through all my blood. I’m drinking champagne all over,” cried the impassioned patient.
“La! Sir Arthur, how can you?” cried Agatha.
“When I say champagne, I mean nectar’s nothing to it. What a beautiful surgeon!” and Sir Arthur took Agatha’s hand, and pressed it in his wounded palm,—pressing the patch to make the operation perfect. “Dear me!” and the gentleman feigned sudden surprise, “that I should be near forgetting it!”
“Forgetting what, Sir Arthur?” asked the ingenuous maid.
“The fee, sweet girl; the fee,” and Sir Arthur, quite ere the young lady was aware of his intention, pressed his lips to her hand—to the hand that was rapidly snatched away as from the touch of a nettle. “And now, my dear little leech—when I say leech, I mean my blooming cherub—when do you think the hand will be fit to go to church?”
“I should say, Sir Arthur, that the lady herself, whoever she may be, could best answer such a strange question.” Here Agatha tried to trill a careless note or two.
Sir Arthur very much enjoyed the pretty confusion of Agatha, and was highly delighted by the torment that, in the courage new to himself, he had, he was sure of it, inflicted upon Miss Candituft. It was really capital recreation, excellent sport, at one and the same time to play with the hearts of two women. And one such a pretty little simpleton—the other such a high-topping task-mistress! The baronet felt proud of himself. And then he thought of his face, his figure; and took the incident as a matter of course. How could it be otherwise?
“You can’t predict the time?” and Sir Arthur gaily returned to the question.
“Haven’t an idea,” said Agatha; “no, not an idea.”
“At all events, then, you will see the patient every day?” Whereupon the baronet would look as though he had all his heart in his eyes.
“Why, really, Sir Arthur, upon such a subject I feel—I mean—you must ask my mamma. Ha!”—and Agatha snatched her hand away, for the door opened, and Mrs. Jericho, most sumptuously caparisoned, flowed into the room—“And here is mamma,” said the confused maiden.
Mrs. Jericho had a mother’s eyes, and would not then and there see the blushes of her daughter. As though Agatha had not been in the room, Mrs. Jericho, all smiles and presence of mind, received and returned the compliments of the baronet.
“Agatha, my child,” observed Mrs. Jericho in the softest voice, “I thought the Hon. Mr. Candituft—”
“Oh, Cesar is talking to Monica,” said Miss Candituft, stepping from the balcony, whilst Agatha felt it was impossible that she could do otherwise than faint to behold her. “Really you have a charming prospect from this window. I’ve been quite fixed by it—quite. Did not expect to see anything like what I have seen,” said Miss Candituft; and Agatha shuddered. The next moment Monica joined the party, informing her mamma that the Hon. Mr. Candituft had been removed into the study by Mr. Jericho. Thither let us follow them.