CHAPTER XX.
As St. Shekels clock struck twelve, the bridegroom awoke. Heavily yawning, he called for Atkins. The faithful creature, hovering about the door, immediately entered the room. “Atkins, what’s o’clock?” demanded Hodmadod.
Atkins, afraid to give a direct reply, said, “Clock, sir? ha, sir! don’t you know?”
“How the devil should I know?” asked Hodmadod, still yawning, and then stretching himself, and rolling backwards and forwards, half stupified by sleep. “What’s o’clock?”
“Why, sir”—Atkins was afraid to speak—“why, sir, it’s past twelve o’clock.”
“Past twelve, eh? Past twelve,” grumbled Hodmadod, very drowsily.
“Do you recollect, sir,” and Atkins timidly approached the subject—“do you at all recollect, sir, anything you had to do this morning?”
“Humph!” grunted Hodmadod, with half-closed eyes.
Hereupon Atkins took up the bridal waistcoat, and shaking it—quite as if he meant nothing—and smoothing it in the face of Hodmadod, repeated the question. The bridegroom’s eyes gradually fixed themselves upon the snowy garment: light and with it consciousness gleamed within them. Suddenly, Hodmadod sat bolt upright in bed, and violently and rapidly exclaimed—“Atkins, tell me, Atkins! Wasn’t I to be married this morning?”
“This looks a little like it, sir,” said Atkins, at arm’s length exhibiting the waistcoat.
Then Hodmadod, with a groan, fell back in his bed, and cried—“Atkins, Stubbs has poisoned me; when I say poisoned me”—
“My dear fellow,” exclaimed Candituft, bursting into the room; “how delighted am I at last to find you! What is the matter? Poison! Attempted suicide? No doubt, to avoid this marriage. I always thought your heart was not in it. But wherefore poison?”
“When I say poison, I mean—look there”—and Hodmadod pointed to the phial. “Stubbs prescribed it; two doses, one at night, one in the morning. Thought it quite the same to take ’em both at once—they were only to strengthen my nerves, and they’ve”—
“I see; a narcotic. A double dose has been a tremendous sleeping-draught,” said Candituft. “My dear friend—’tis a mercy you ever woke again. I have only just left the Jerichos.”
The Bride-groom!
The Bride-groom!
The Bride-groom!
“There’s no time to lose,” cried Hodmadod; “I feel dreadfullystupid with the physic; when I say stupid, I mean I’ll be up, dressed, and ready for church directly.”
“Too late, my dear boy,” said Candituft with touching solemnity. “I came before to seek you—but your valet”—
“Acted according to orders, sir,” said Atkins. “Sir Arthur knows that. He must clear me,” and assured of this, Atkins, with the fullest self-satisfaction, left the room.
“Too late! How do you mean too late?” cried Hodmadod. “Never too late to marry.”
“Too late to-day. We waited for you an hour; a full hour in the church,” said Candituft.
“What a wretch I am!” exclaimed Hodmadod, striking the clothes with his fist—“when I say a wretch, I mean a brute not fit to see the light,” and executing his own sentence, he rolled his head in the blankets. “Not fit to see the light,” he howled through the bed clothes.
“Come, you must be comforted,” said Candituft. “Nevertheless, it was a dreadful sight in the vestry. Enough to melt a heart of stone.” Hodmadod groaned. “Mr. Jericho all colours with rage. Mrs. Jericho still smiling, confident to the last.” Hodmadod, with much emotion, shook his leg; and in smothered voice bellowed—“I don’t deserve it.” Candituft continued. “Monica all tears. My sister—dear girl!—only thoughtful of the happiness of others; regardless of her own sufferings—but I will not dwell upon that—my sister, I say, doing all she could to engage the attention of Agatha.”
“And—and—Agatha?” asked the culprit through the blankets. There was no answer.—“Yes—my dear friend—tell me all her sufferings,” cried Hodmadod in muffled voice—“all.”
“Well, I must say this much in her praise,” answered Candituft, “she bore the delay with the greatest patience.” Gradually Hodmadod unrolled his head from the blankets. “She talked and chatted away the time in the prettiest and pleasantest manner.”
“You don’t say so?” cried Hodmadod, again showing hisheated face to the light, and staring in the eyes of the cool and traitorous Candituft. “You don’t say so?”
“It might have been to disguise her real feelings,” said Candituft. “Nevertheless, I must say, it did not seem like it. No; the fortitude seemed genuine. I know your partiality—you like women with such philosophy.”
“No, I don’t,” cried Hodmadod savagely. “When I say I don’t like ’em, I mean I hate ’em.”
“It’s my mistake, my dear friend. Well, where was I? Oh, well—we waited the hour; and when the clock struck we left the church,” repeated Candituft.
“And Agatha?” moaned Hodmadod.
“Why, the little heroine skipped into her carriage, happy as a bird.”—
“She’s a flirt—a jilt”—cried Hodmadod. “I’m very much obliged to Doctor Stubbs.”
“Do you really feel an obligation for that double dose?” asked Candituft.
“I do—I do!” shouted Hodmadod, and he shook Candituft’s hand, and in despair again rolled himself up in the bed-clothes.
It was a very wicked rumour! A vile and cruel insinuation! And when we are made to feel the combined meanness and wickedness of such a slander; when we are oppressed by the power of such calumny; when our spirit faints beneath a sense of the poison,—how apt we are to wish the world at once at an end, that truth may vindicate its lasting triumph. “Shut the book, my dear”—it was thus an old man spoke to his grandchild, reading a chronicle of atrocity; of blood, and fire, and infanticide, and the rest—“shut the book, my child, and let us pray for the Judgment.”
Poor little Agatha! When she was assured by several bosom friends that it was well known throughout the world that Sir Arthur Hodmadod had taken poison—only, happily, a powerful constitution had triumphed over the deadly dose—poison forthe sole, determined purpose of avoiding marriage with Miss Agatha Pennibacker,—she wished at once to sink into her grave, to be well quit of a world that could coin and circulate such a wicked, wicked counterfeit. Nevertheless, Hodmadod did not show himself at Jericho House. What then? Good Doctor Stubbs gave daily intelligence of his amending health. Still, Hodmadod did not write! Why, no; Stubbs had forbidden him any mental exercise soever; his nerves were still in a jangle, and pen and ink were luxuries, in his delicate condition, not to be tasted. Agatha continued to be assured of the devotion, the unalterable passion of Sir Arthur. And she was willing to believe it. Nevertheless—her heart would whisper as much in her bosom—nevertheless, the smallest of notes would have been thankfully received from the dearest of lovers, and still not a line from Sir Arthur! Not a syllable to give hope of his speedy convalescence! Not even a hint of an early day to carry out the beautiful intention, so disastrously marred at the very foot of St. Shekels altar. Well; a knowledge of the wicked truth oppresses us, and without further delay, we will at once make known the treachery of Candituft and the falsehood of the Baronet. As Agatha’s heart is, for a time, doomed to be broken, the blow may as well come down at once. The earlier the damage, the sooner the repair.
“It is enough to make a man leave civilised life, and wear goatskins,”—said Candituft, on his next visit to Hodmadod—“to know and feel the malignity of the family of man.”
“Certainly,” said Hodmadod, “it’s a family that will pick one another to pieces. When I say pick”—
“To be sure. Now, what do you imagine, my dear friend—what do you conceive to be the cause of your deferred marriage with the beautiful Agatha?”—
“Why, the physic—the sleeping draught. Morphine, wasn’t it?” asked the innocent Hodmadod.
“To be sure: but the world will not have it so. No—no. The world declares that you had thought better of the business”—
“Yes?” cried the Baronet, a little impatient.
“And between the bride and poison, chose the drug,” and Candituft spoke as one disgusted.
“Impossible! It can’t be!” exclaimed Hodmadod.
“My dear friend, I will not suffer myself to tell you how this falsehood is propped—buttressed up I may say—by other lies. I heard it avowed—malignantly avowed—that if you should, even now, marry Miss Pennibacker, the young lady will be indebted for a husband, not to his own choice, but entirely to a stomach-pump.”
“But it isn’t true, you know,” said the Baronet.
“What matters truth to a scoffing world? I must, however, say that some—indeed a great many—excellent people were most kind, most sympathetic. They entirely believed in the innocence of your mistake: they kindly attributed your swallowing a double dose to the unreflecting fervour of a lover. But at the same time, they one and all declared, that in their opinion, the finger of fate was in it.”
“When you say the finger of fate you mean,—I was sent to sleep by the kindness of Providence?”
“Exactly so. In a word, it is evident”—say reflecting people—“it is evident that Sir Arthur was not to marry Miss Pennibacker.”
And—to be brief—the people were right. For, in a few days, Sir Arthur wedded with Miss Candituft. And, when Agatha most needed the protection of a husband! For never had Mr. Jericho shown himself such a ruthless and intolerable tyrant. The servants began to declare he was mad, and such sad belief every hour gained ground with Jericho’s family. Mrs. Jericho thought she would seek counsel of Basil; and then she feared to discover all her bodings to him. Again; it might be only another of the frantic fits that had of late shaken her helpmate; although this time, the insanity took a more terrible development.
The Man of Money, though he had controlled his indignation, quitted St. Shekel’s church an enraged and wounded individual. Yes; wounded in his delicate sense of money. Sir Arthur Hodmadod had shown to the world his contempt of the alliance—hadproclaimed his indifference, his scorn of Solomon Jericho! The slight, the insult put upon the bride, was of little account—the blow was aimed at the father-in-law through the daughter. Already the Man of Money thought of pistols; and then, the risk of another hole through his monetary heart made him at once resolve upon peace. For two days Jericho considered with himself; brooded in silence over his new design. At length he was resolved. At length, he had made the true discovery of the true value of wealth. The value was power—not show. Now this great and original discovery, as his disordered brain believed it, worked on him with the rage of madness. It was now his fond conviction that the money he bore about him, carried with it an immortal principle: if he ceased to exhaust his heart—his bank of life—he should live for ever. He would, therefore, not draw another note; no; not another. He would live upon what he had. He would turn the foolish superfluities about him into hard, tangible money. He would enjoy avarice; for avarice was power. The miser was the ragged king, and the finest of fools were his merest subjects. And with this thought, Jericho wandered throughout his house; now muttering, now talking, and now threatening the types and shows of wealth about him. He would no longer feed the eyes of the world—a perilous waste—but govern men with a golden sceptre. “Why, it was a vanity—a miserable vanity—the stupid pride of the peacock—to spread before the world a splendid show! Now, the magpie was a wiser creature that concealed its treasures.” And then he—the Man of Money—had had enough of public homage. He would therefore turn miser, and make men look upon his outside wretchedness with wonder; make them bow and simper to his very tatters. Again, mystery ever hung about the miser; for it was the serf-like weakness of the poor to multiply his riches.
“Mrs. Jericho,” said the Man of Money. The trembling wife had been summoned to receive her husband’s orders. She had scarcely power to meet the eyes of her helpmate. In two days, twenty years seemed to have gathered upon him. His face lookedbrown, thin, and withered as the last year’s leaf. His whole body bent and swayed like a piece of paper, moved by the air. As he held his hand aloof, the light shone through it. Basil’s words again sounded in the woman’s ears: it was plain, there was some horrid compact between her lord and the infernal powers; or—it was all as one—the tyranny of conscience had worn him to his present condition.
“Mrs. Jericho, madam, you will instantly bring me all your diamonds—jewellery—all. Give the like orders to your daughters; the mincing harpies that eat me.”
“My dear—my love!” cried the wife.
“My love! Well, well, you mean the same thing; but the words should not be ‘my love’—but ‘my money.’”
“You are not well, Solomon. You have been vexed by this disappointment; you have taken it too much to heart,” stammered Mrs. Jericho.
“To heart! ha! ha! Very well—be it so. Heart and pocket, ma’am; all’s one.”
“My dear, let me send for Doctor Stubbs.” The wife shrinkingly approached the Man of Money, and—timidly as a wood-nymph might put her hand upon a wolf—was about to encircle with her arm the neck of Jericho.
“Away with you! I’ll have none of it. Woman’s arms! The serpents that wind about a man’s neck, killing his best resolutions. Away with you, and do as I command. Bring me all your treasures—all. And your minxes! See that they obey me too. And instantly.”
“Yes, my love; to be sure,” said Mrs. Jericho; for she was all but convinced that Solomon’s reason was gone, or going. It was best and wisest for the time to be calm with him—to humour him. “And why, my love, do you wish for these things? Of course, you shall have them. But why?”
“To turn them into money, madam,” cried Jericho, rubbing his hands. “We have had enough of the tom-foolery of wealth—I now begin to hunger for the substance. I’ll do without fashion. I’ll have power, madam; power.”
“Yes, Solomon; certainly. But tell me, dearest, is not fashion power?” asked the wife, essaying a smile.
“The power of a fool. Am I a fool?” The wife raised her hands, forbidding the thought. “What’s all this show—all this outside trumpery? Do I enjoy it? Am I the master of it?”—
“Yes, love; of course,” said Mrs. Jericho.
“I say no—no. The fools, the wretches who come about us—’tis theirs as much as mine. To see it is to have it. Now why should I rob myself to feed the eyes of asses? No: I’ll have all my money all to myself. I’ll keep the power in my own hands—in my own hands. I’ll raise an army, an army, madam;” and Jericho chuckled, and his wife was more convinced of his increasing insanity. “Now, woman, do you know what an army is?”
“Of course, my dear; I should hope so,” and the wife still tried to coax the madman.
“I mean, the rich man’s army; the miser’s army, if you will. Now I propose to raise—let me see—let me see—a couple of million of fighting men.”
“Mad! Past hope—mad!” thought the wife in despair.
“Do you hear me, woman?” roared the Man of Money, and he shook like a green flag in the wind.
“Yes, love; every word—every syllable. Of course;” and again the wife trembled.
“Two millions of fighting men. And how will I raise them? Why, there’s your jewels; the jewels—for I’ll have every stone of ’em—of those kittens, your daughters.”—
(“If I could only manage to send for Doctor Stubbs,” thought Mrs. Jericho.)
“Then there’s this house and all its lumbering trumpery. And—and—that cursed hermitage you made me buy for the time I was to be Prime Minister of England.”—
(“Oh—that Doctor Stubbs would make a morning call!” silently prayed the wife.)
“I shall turn all—all into fighting men. And such men!Ha! ha! they are never killed; no—no; they multiply. Yes—yes”—and Jericho bent his head, and joined his hands, “they increase and multiply.”—
(“He shall not be left alone,” determined Mrs. Jericho, with a shiver.)
“And these millions of fighting men are men with the royal stamp upon ’em, Mrs. Jericho; men who sing a continual chorusDei gratia; men, who it may be, kill—kill upon fields of parchment: kill dead, dead as the sheep that carried the skin,—what then? all’s clean and clear, not a drop of blood.”
“No. Oh, no; not a drop”—said Mrs. Jericho. Poor bewildered woman! What could she say?
“Now, when I make myself the general of these two millions of golden men, I send them out—some on one campaign—some on another. Some to do service for young heirs, and eat ’em afterwards. Well, they return to me. They come home, bringing prisoners; other golden captives. Every soldier his one, or two, or three soldiers. Eh?”
“Yes, love; of course,” assented Mrs. Jericho.
“And therefore, madam,” cried Jericho with ferocity—“therefore, we will have no more of this trumpery to waste upon others. No: I will have the power—the power in my own hands. I will have my fighting millions of good gold pieces; and—though we live in a hovel, and all of us wear sackcloth, as we all shall”—
“To be sure, my dear,” said Mrs. Jericho, and—she could not help it—she thought of a strait-waistcoat.
“Why, even then, when folks point at me, crawling about in outside beggary—even then the world shall acknowledge me to be greater than Cæsar, with all his legions.”
“Yes—yes—dear,” sighed Mrs. Jericho.
“Cæsar, with all his legions,” repeated the man possessed; and he poised himself in his chair as upon a throne; and called into his shadowy face, as he believed, an imperial look of money.