"It's a tremendous fluke," said Mr. Simnel, as he leisurely undressed himself; "but it will serve my purpose admirably. That eight hundred pounds of mine lent to Master Charley looks much less shaky than it did, and what a trump-card to play with Kate!"
Two days after the events recorded in the last chapter, Mr. Simnel left the Tin-Tax Office a couple of hours earlier than his usual time of departure, and taking a cab, hurried off to his apartments in Piccadilly. Overlooking the Green Park, sufficiently lofty to be removed from the immediate noise of the traffic, and situate in that part of the street which was macadamised, there were, perhaps, no more delightful chambers in town than those occupied by the Tin-Tax secretary. They consisted but of three rooms--sitting-room, bed-chamber, and bath-room; but all were lofty and well-proportioned, and were furnished in a thoroughly luxurious manner. A big bookcase, with its contents admirably selected, covered one side of the sitting-room, on the walls of which hung Raphael Morghen prints, and before-letter proofs after Landseer, Leslie, and Stanfield; a round table, over which were suspended three swinging moderator-lamps, with white-china shades and crimson-silk fringe; a sofa and numerous easy-chairs, all in crimson velvet and walnut-wood; rich spoils of Bohemian glass, standing in odd corners on quaint oak cabinets; two Sèvres china dogs, in begging attitude, mounting guard on either end of the mantelshelf; and a flying female figure suspended across the looking-glass;--such were among the incongruous contents of the room. On the table, two yellow-paper covered French novels, a Horace, and M'Culloch's Commercial Directory lay side by side; in the looking-glass, cards for evening-parties and dinners were jostled by tickets soliciting vote and interest in approaching elections of charitable societies, remindings of gatherings of learned bodies, and small bills for books or boots. It was Mr. Simnel's pleasure to keep up thismélange; his time was generally fully occupied; he chose people to consider that he had not a moment to himself; he wished those who called on him on business to see the invitations, in order that they might judge therefrom of his position in society; and he took care that the attention of those idle droppers-in, who came on a Sunday morning, for instance, or late at night, to have a chat, should be directed to the business-cards, to give them a notion of his standing in the money-making, business world. Since Mr. Simnel assumed the reins at the Tin-Tax Office, two or three hundred men had sat with their legs under that round table, discussing an excellent dinner, and meeting pleasant people; but not one of them had ever left the room without Mr. Simnel's feeling that his coming had been productive of benefit to his host, and that the invitation had fully answered its intent. Baron Oppenhardt, the great financier, never could tell what made him accept Simnel's invitation, save that he knew his host was connected with Government and had a long head of his own; yet he never refused. And little Blurt, whose "connexion with the press" was of a limited nature, never could understand why, biennially, he sat under those shaded moderator-lamps in Piccadilly, and consumed Pommery Greno out of bell-shaped glasses. But Simnel knew why he had them to dinner, and took their value out of both Oppenhardt and Blurt.
A long-headed man, Mr. Simnel, and, to judge from the strange smile on his face on that particular day, full of some special scheme, as he emerged from his bedroom and looked out into Piccadilly. Any thing but a vain man, and long past the age when the decoration of one's person enters largely into account, Mr. Simnel had yet paid special attention to his toilette during the short interval which had elapsed since his arrival at home from the Tin-Tax Office. He was got up with elaborate care and yet perfect simplicity; indeed, there was a touch of the old school in his drab riding-trousers, white waistcoat, blue cut-away coat, and blue bird's-eye neckerchief, with small stand-up collars. A glance into the street showed him that his horses were ready, and he descended at once. At the door he found his groom mounted on a knowing-looking gray cob, short, stiff, and sturdy, and leading a splendid thoroughbred bright bay with black points. This Mr. Simnel mounted and rode easily away.
Through Decimus Burton's archway he turned into Hyde Park and made at once for the Row. There were but few men lounging about there at that time of the year, but Simnel was known to some of them; and after nods had been exchanged, they fell to comparing notes about him and his horse and his style of living, wondering how it was done, admiring his cleverness, detracting from his position--talking, in fact, as men will do of another who has beat them in this grand struggle for place which we call life. The Row was very empty, and Simnel paid but little attention to its occupants: now and then he occasionally raised his whip mechanically in acknowledgment of some passing salute, but it is to be doubted whether he knew to whom he was telegraphing, as his thoughts were entirely fixed on his mission. However, he wore a pleasant smile on his face, and that was quite enough: grinning, like charity, covers a multitude of sins; and if you only smile and hold your tongue, you can pass through life with anéclatwhich excellent eloquence, combined with a serious face, would fail to give. So Mr. Simnel went smiling along at the easiest amble until he got clear of the Row and the town, and then he gave the bay his head, and never drew rein until he turned up a country lane immediately on passing Ealing Common.
Half way up this lane stood The Den, and evidences of Kate Mellon's calling began to abound so soon as you turned out of the high-road. In the fields on either side through the bare hedges one could see a string of horses in cloths and head-pieces, each ridden by a groom, skirting the hedges along which a proper riding-path had been made; occasionally a yellow break, driven by a veteran coachman, with a younger and more active coadjutor perched up behind, and standing with his eyes on a level with the coach-box observing every motion of the horses, would rumble by, while the clay-coloured gig containing Mr. Sandcrack the veterinary surgeon, who, in his long white cravat, beard, and tight trousers, looked a pleasant compound of a dissenting-minister, a horse-jockey, and an analytical chemist, was flying in and out of the lane at all times and seasons. Mr. Simnel seemed accustomed to these scenes and thoroughly well known amongst them, the grooms and breaksmen touched their hats to him, and he exchanged salutations with Mr. Sandcrack, and told him that the bay had got rid of all his wind-galls and never went better in his life. So straight up the lane until he arrived at the lodge, and then, before his groom could ride up, his cheery cry of "Gate!" brought out the buxom lodge-keeper, and she also greeted Mr. Simnel with a curtsey of recognition, and received his largesse as he rode through; so down the little carriage-drive, past the pigeon-house elevated on a pole, and the pointers' kennels, and the strip of garden cultivated by the lodge-keeper, and in which one of the lodge-keeper's dirty chubby children was always sprawling; past the inner gates, through which could be caught glimpses of the circular straw-ride, and the stable and loose boxes, and the neatly gravelled courtyard, up the sweep and so to the house-door. Freeman, the staid stud-groom from Yorkshire, had seen the visitor's entry from the stable, where he was superintending, and hurried up to meet him. Before Mr. Simnel's own groom had come alongside, Freeman was at his horse's head.
"Mornin', sir," said he, touching his hat. "Missis is oop at u, close by, givin' lesson to a young leddy, just by t' water soide: joompin' brook, oi think. Howsever she'll be in d'rackly, oi know."
"All right, Freeman," said Mr. Simnel, leisurely dismounting. "Horses all well? Fine weather for horseflesh, this!"
"Ay, ay, it be, sir!" said the old man. "Stood be pratty well, oi'm thinkin': coughs and colds, and that loike, as is allays case this toime o' year."
"Don't hurry Miss Mellon on my account, Freeman," said Mr. Simnel; "I can wait. I'll go into the house, and you can let her know that I'm here, when she comes in. By the way, Freeman, I haven't seen you since Christmas: here's for old acquaintance' sake."
Freeman touched his hat gratefully, but not submissively, as he pocketed the half-sovereign which Mr. Simnel slipped into his capacious palm, and moved off towards the stables with the groom and the horses.
"Good man, that," said Simnel to himself, as he went into the house. "Straightforward, conscientious sort of fellow, and thoroughly devoted toher. Proper style of man to have in an establishment: thoroughly respectable--do one credit by his looks. If it ever comes off, I certainly should keep Mr. Freeman on."
Mr. Simnel passed on into the long low dining-room, where he found the table spread for luncheon, with a very substantial display of cold roast beef, fowls, and tongue, sherry, and a tall bottle of German wine. He smiled as he noticed these preparations, and then leisurely walked round the room. He paused at an oil-painting of Kate with a favourite horse by her side. The artist evidently knew much more about the equine than the human race. The horse's portrait was admirable, but poor Kitty, with vermilion cheeks and glaring red hair, and a blue habit with long daubs of light in it, like rain-streaks on a window, was a lamentable object to look on. Only one other picture decorated the walls, a portrait of the Right Hon. the Earl of Quorn, aged 61, founder of the Society for the Relief of Incapacitated Jobmasters and Horse-dealers, dedicated to him by his faithful servants the publishers; representing a hale old gentleman, remarkable principally for his extraordinary length of check-neckcloth, seated on a weight-carrying cob, and staring intently at nothing. On a side-table lay a thick book,Youatt on the Horse, and a thin pamphlet,Navicular not Incurable, aLittle Warbler(poor Kitty!), and a kind of album, into which a heterogeneous mixture of recipes for horse-medicines, scraps of hunting news, lists of prices fetched at the sales of celebrated studs, and other sporting memoranda had been pasted. Simnel was looking through this, and had just come upon a slip of printed matter, evidently cut from a newspaper, announcing the appointment of Mr. Charles Beresford to be a commissioner of the Tin-Tax Office, in place of Cockle pensioned--a slip against which there were three huge deep pencil-scorings--when the door opened and his hostess entered.
Although her habit was draggled and splashed, and her hair disarranged and blown about her face, Kate Mellon never had looked, to Simnel's eyes at least, more thoroughly charming than she did at that instant. The exercise she had just gone through had given her a splendid colour, her eyes were bright and sparkling, her whole frame showed to perfection in the tight-fitting jacket; and as she came into the room and removed her hat, the knot of hair behind, loosened from the comb, fell over her shoulders in golden profusion. She wound it up at once with one hand, advancing with the other outstretched to her guest.
"Sorry I'm late, Simnel," said she; "but I had a pupil here, and business is business, as you know well enough. Can't afford to throw away any chance, so I gave her her hour, and now she's off, and I am all the better by a guinea. I didn't stop to change my habit because I heard you were waiting, and I knew you wouldn't mind."
"You couldn't look more enchanting than you do now, Kate," said Simnel.
"Yes, yes; I know," said Kitty; "all right! But I thought you knew better than that. This is the wrong shop for flummery of that sort, as you ought to have learnt by this time. Have some lunch?"
They sat down to the table, and during the meal talked on ordinary subjects; for the most part discussing their common acquaintance, but always carefully avoiding bringing Beresford's name forward. When they had finished, Kate said, "You want to smoke, of course. I think I shall have a puff myself. No, thank you; your weeds are too big for me; I've got some Queens here that old Sir John Elle sent me after I broke that roan mare for his daughter. By George, what a brute that was! nearly killed me at first, she did; and now you might ride her with a pack-thread."
Simnel did not reply. Kate Mellon curled herself up on an ottoman in the window with her habit tucked round her; lit a small cigar; and slowly expelling the smoke said, as the blue vapour curled round her head, "And now to business! You wanted to talk to me, you said; and I told you to come up to-day. What's it all about?"
"About yourself, Kate. You know thoroughly well my feelings to you; you know how often I have--"
"Hold on a minute!" said Kate; "I know that you've been philandering and hanging on about me,--or would have been, if I'd have let you,--for this year past. I know that well enough; but I thought there was to be none of this. I thought I'd told you to drop that subject, and that you'd consented to drop it. I told you I wouldn't listen to you, and--"
"Why would not you listen to me, Kate?" said Simnel earnestly.
"Why? Because--"
"Don't trouble yourself to find an excuse; I'll tell you why," said Simnel. "Because you were desperately bent on a fruitless errand; because you were beating the wind and trying to check the storm; because you were in love,--I must speak plainly, Kitty, in a matter like this,--in love with a man who did not return your feeling, and who even now is boasting of your passion, and laughing at you as its dupe!"
"What!" cried the girl, throwing away the cigar and starting to her feet.
"Sit down, child," said Simnel, gently laying his hand on her arm; "sit down, and hear me out. I know your pluck and spirit; and nothing grieves me more, or goes more against the grain with me, than to have to tell you this. But when I tell you that the man to whom you so attached yourself has spoken lightly and sneeringly of your infatuation; that amongst his friends he has laughingly talked of a scene which occurred on the last occasion of his visit to this house, when you suggested that he should marry you--"
"Did he say that?" asked the girl, pushing her hair back from her face,--"did he say that?"
"That and more; laughed at the notion, and--"
"O my God!" shrieked Kate Mellon, throwing up her arms. "Spare me! stop, for Heaven's sake, and don't let me hear any more. Did he say that of me? Then they'll all know it, and when I meet them will grin and whisper as I know they do. Haven't I heard them do it of others a thousand times? and now to think they'll have the pull of me. O good Lord, good Lord!" and she burst into tears and buried her face in her handkerchief. Then suddenly rousing, she exclaimed: "What do you come and tell me this for, Simnel? What business is it of yours? What's your motive in coming and smashing me up like this?"
"One, and one only," said Simnel in a low voice. "I wanted to prevent your demeaning yourself by ever showing favour to a man who has treated you so basely. I wanted you to show your own pride and spirit by blotting this Beresford from your thoughts. I wanted you to do this--whatever may be the result--because--I love you, Kate!"
"That's it!" she cried suddenly--"that's it! You're telling me lies and long stories, and breaking my heart, and making me make a fool of myself, only that you may stand well with me and get me to like you! How do I know what you say is true? Why should Charley do this? Why did Charley refuse what I offered him? I meant it honestly enough, God knows. Oh, why did he refuse it?" and again she burst into tears.
"Oh, he did refuse it?" said Simnel, quietly. "So far, then you see I am right; and you will find I am right throughout. I'll tell you why he acted as he did to you. Because he's full of family pride, and because he never cared for you one rush. At this very moment he is desperately in love with a married woman, and is only awaiting her husband's death to make her his wife!"
"Can you prove that?" asked Kate eagerly.
"I can! you shall have ample opportunity of satisfying yourself--"
"Does the husband suspect?"
"Not in the least."
"That's right!" said the girl with sudden energy--"that'll do! Only let me prove that, and I'll give him up for ever."
"If I do this for you, Kitty, surely my love will be sufficiently proved. You will then--"
"Yes, we'll talk of that afterwards. I'll see you next week, and you'll tell me more of this new love-affair of--ofhis!Don't stop now. I'm all out of sorts. You've upset me. I wasn't in condition. I've been doing a little too much work lately. Go now, there's a good fellow! Good-by." Then stopping suddenly--"You're sure you're not selling me, Simnel?"
"I swear it!" said Simnel.
"I wish to heaven you had been," said the poor girl; "but we'll see about the new business next week. I think we'll spoil that pretty game between us, eh? There, good-by." And she set her teeth tight, and rushed from the room.
"So fax so good," said Mr. Simnel, as he rode quietly home. "She's taken it almost a little too strongly. My plan now is to soften her and turn her to me. I think I have a card in my hand that will win that trick, and then--the game's my own!"
The idea suggested by Simnel, after the interview with Dr. Prater at the Flybynights, came upon Mr. Beresford with extraordinary force. It opened up to him a new train of thought, gave a complete turn to his intended course of life, afforded him matter for the deepest study and reflection. As we have already seen, he was a man with a faultless digestion, and without a scrap of heart--two qualities which had undoubtedly greatly conduced towards his success in life, and towards making him a careless, easy-going worldly philosopher. When he first saw Miss Townshend at Bissett Grange, he remembered her as a cheery little flirt whom he had met during the previous season; and finding her companionable and amusing, determined to carry on a flirtation which should serve as a pastime, and, at the break-up of the party, be consigned to that limbo already replete with similaramourettes. The presence of Captain Lyster, and the unmistakable evidence of his passion for the young lady, gave Mr. Beresford very little annoyance; he had a notion that, save in very exceptional cases, of which indeed he had had no experience, women had a horror of an earnest lover; that watchings and waitings, hangings on words, deep gazings into eyes, and all outward signs of that passion which induces melancholy and affords themes for poets, were as muchrococoand out of date as carrying a lady's glove in your hat and perpetually seeking a fight with some one on her account. He thought that women hated "dreary" lovers, and were far more likely to be won by rattle, laughter, and raillery than by the deepest devotion of a silent and sighing order. Moreover, as he was only going in for flirtation, he would make his running while it lasted, and leave the Captain to come in with the weight-carrying proprieties after he had gone.
So far at first. Then came the recollection of his straitened position, the reflection that Miss Townshend was an heiress, and the determination to go in seriously for a proposal--a determination which was very short-lived, owing to the discovery of the lady's engagement to Gustav Schröder. From the time of her marriage, Mrs. Schröder was by Beresford mentally relegated to a corps which included several married ladies of his acquaintance; for the most part young and pretty women, whose husbands were either elderly, or immersed in business, or, what was equally available, immersed in pleasure, and more attentive to other men's wives than to their own; ladies who required "notice," as they phrased it, and who were sufficiently good-looking to command it from some men, between whom and themselves there existed a certain understanding. Nothing criminal, nor approaching to criminality; for despite the revelations of the Divorce Court, there is, I take it, a something, whether it be in what is called our phlegmatic temperament, whether it be in the bringing-up of our English girls,--bringing-up of domesticity utterly unknown to Continental-bred young ladies, which hallows and keeps constantly present the image of the doting father and the tender mother, and all the sacred home-associations,--a something which strengthens the weak and arrests the hand of the spoiler, and leaves the sacrifice incomplete. The necessity for "notice," or for "being understood," or "for having some one to rely on" (the husband engaged in business or in the House being, of course, utterly untrustworthy), has created a kind of society which I can only describe as a kind of solid bread-and-butterdemi-monde--ademi-mondewhich, as compared with that state of existence known in France under the title, is as a club to a tavern, where the same things are carried on, but in a far more genteel and decorous manner. The relations of its different members to each other are as free from Wertherian sentimentalism as they are from Parisian license, and would probably be considered severely correct by that circle of upper Bohemians, of whose lives the younger Dumas has constituted himself the chronicler.
Having, then, mentally appointed Mrs. Schröder a member of this society, Mr. Beresford took upon himself the office of her cavalier, and behaved to her in due form. When they were in company together, he sedulously kept his eyes upon her, strove to anticipate her wishes, and let her see that it was she who entirely absorbed him; he always dropped his voice when he spoke to her, even though it were about the merest trifle; and he invariably took notice of the arrangements of her dress, hair, and appearance in general, and made suggestions which, being in excellent taste, were generally approved and carried out. Then he found out Mrs. Schröder's romantic side, a little bit of nineteenth-century sentiment, dashed with drawing-room cynicism, which found its exponent in Mr. Owen Meredith's weaker verses; and there they found plenty of quotations about not being understood, and the "little look across the crowd," and "what is not, might have been," and other choice little sentiments, which did not tend to elevate Mr. Gustav Schröder, then hard at work in the City, in his wife's good opinion. Indeed, being a very weak little woman, with a parasitical tendency to cling for support to something, and being without that something, which she had hitherto found in Barbara, free from the dread which her father's presence always imposed upon her, and having no companion in her husband, Mrs. Schröder began to look forward with more and more eagerness to her opportunities of meeting Charles Beresford, to take greater and greater delight in his attentions and his conversation, and to substitute a growing repugnance for her hitherto passive endurance of Mr. Schröder. Charles Beresford was gradually coming to occupy the principal position in her thoughts, and this that gentleman perceived with mingled feelings of gratified vanity and annoyance. "She's going a little too fast!" he had said to himself; "this sort of thing is all very well; but she's making it a mile too palpable! People will talk, and I'm not in a position to stand any public scandal; and as for bolting, or any thing of that sort, by Jove, it would be sheer ruin and nothing less." In this frame of mind, it had more than once occurred to Mr. Beresford to speak to Mrs. Schröder, and caution her as to her bearing towards him; but fortunately for him, so thoroughly void of offence had been all their relations hitherto, that he scarcely dared to hint at what he intended to convey, without risking the accusation of imputing evil by his very advice. And in the mean time, while he hesitated what course to take, came Dr. Prater's information, which at once changed all his plans.
The day after the conversation at the Flybynights, Mr. Beresford left town and remained away for a week. The first day after his return, he went into Mr. Simnel's room at the Office, and found that gentleman as usual surrounded with work. Contrary, however, to his general custom, Simnel no sooner looked up and saw Beresford than he threw down the pen which he was plying, rose, and advancing shook his friend heartily by the hand.
"Glad to see you back, Charley!" he said; "I was afraid you were off for a ramble by your leaving no message and no address. Some of the old games, eh? You must give them up now, Master Charley, and live circumspectly; by Jove, you must."
"Nothing of the sort," replied Beresford. "Gayford, who was chief here before Maddox, was an old friend of our family; and he's ill, poor old boy, so I went out of charity to stay with him. He's got a place at Berkhampstead, and there's deuced good hunting-country round there. I had three capital days; Gayford's daughters were out; clipping riders, those girls; good as Kate Mellon any day!"
"Indeed!" said Mr. Simnel, wincing a little at the name: "I should think flirting with any body's daughters, be they ever so 'clipping,' as you call it, would be time wasted for you just now, wouldn't it?"
"What do you mean?" asked Beresford, knowing perfectly, but anxious that the declaration should come from his companion.
"Mean!" said Simnel, somewhat savagely. "What ant I likely to mean? That you ought to stick to your duties here and earn your salary; that Sir Hickory has heard that you go to the Argyle Rooms, and is going to speak to Lord Palmerston about it; that you're hurting your health or spoiling your complexion by keeping late hours,--is that why I'm likely to tell you to live circumspectly? What rubbish it is fencing with me in this way! You know that the last time we met was at that nightclub of yours; that we had a talk there with Dr. Prater; and that you determined--"
"I know," interrupted Beresford with a start--"I know," he continued, looking round, "I'm not over particular; but I confess this plotting for a dead man's shoes seems to me infernal rascality."
"What do you mean by 'plotting,' Charles Beresford?Iam plotting for no dead man's shoes.Ihave no hope of marrying a pretty widow, and having a splendid income; and as for rascality--"
"There, I didn't mean it; I only thought--"
"Nor, on the other hand," pursued Mr. Simnel, relentlessly, "amIover head and ears in debt, pressed by Jews, horribly impecunious, and--"
"Leave me alone, Simnel, can't you? I know all this; and as you must be perfectly certain, I've turned this Schröder affair over in my mind a hundred times already."
"And what have you decided?"
"To go in for it at all hazards."
"I think you're right," said Simnel quietly; "it seems to me your last chance; and though it's not strictly a very nice business, there are hundreds of men holding their heads up before the world, which very much esteems them, who have made their money in far worse transactions. You'll require an immense amount of patience and tact."
"The former undoubtedly. Prater said he might go at any moment if--what was it?--any thing excited or annoyed him. Question is what does excite a fellow of that sort--Muscovadoes being high, or gray-shirtings scarce, or pig-iron in demand, or some of those things one sees in the paper--banks breaking or stocks falling, eh? As for the tact, I don't think that will be required now."
"How do you mean--now?"
"Because it's all squared already," said Beresford complacently. "I've only to go in and win whenever I like I imagine. To tell the truth--though a man doesn't talk of these things, of course--I've being fighting shy of it lately, rather than pressing it on."
"Yes, yes, of course," said Simnel impatiently; "I know all about that; but don't you see that the greatest tact will be required because your plan of operations must be entirely changed? You have been carrying on a very animated flirtation within certain limits; but now you are going in for a totally different thing. You are going in--sit down, and let us talk this over quietly, it's rather important: I know you've great experience in such matters; but just listen to my humble advice, it may be worth hearing,--you are going in to make sure of marrying a woman after her husband's death; an event likely to occur at any time. To insure success there are two ways--one by compromising her--"
"By Jove, Simnel!" exclaimed Beresford through his shut teeth.
"Be quiet, and don't interrupt--I'm not going to brush the down off your virtue! As I said, by compromising her, by which you gain a hold upon her which she cannot shake off, and must always acknowledge and bow to, when required. But this, besides being wrong and unjust, and all that sort of thing--which I don't so much mind--is risky, which I dislike; and if detected, brings the whole fabric to the ground. So we may put that on one side."
"Ah!" said Beresford, with a sigh of relief; "and the other?"
"The other is a totally different method, and unlike any thing you have ever tried, I suspect, with any one. It is simply by professing hopeless, unswerving, unconquerable spooniness. You have hitherto--pardon the question--merely looked and sighed, &c.? Ah, I thought so; that gesture was quite satisfactory as to the amount of tenderness. Well now, then, you must declare yourself. Quietly, of course, and, if you please, without any manifestations, which would entirely spoil our plan, the essence whereof is virtue. You declare yourself to this effect: that you are so completely smitten that you can keep silence no longer; that previous to going away for a lengthened period (for you believe that expatriation is the only thing that will afford temporary relief), you have determined on speaking to her, fearing she might think your absence strange, or hear its cause wrongly explained by somebody else; that yours is not like the feeble sentiment of the butterflies who flutter around her, &c. &c.; but a deep and stedfast passion, which will only cease with life. You know all that business. Then, that your respect for her is so great, that you will not give scandal the smallest chance of a whisper. Had you met in happier times--oh! you did, eh? Well, then, had you been in a position, when you first met, to have offered, &c.; but now, too late! love for ever; but leave for ever--foreign climes."
"Yes; but you know well enough I can't go abroad, and--"
"My dear fellow, she'll never dream of your doing any thing of the sort. If I've any knowledge of women, she'll be deeply affected, as she ought to be by your deucedly romantic story. She'll say a good deal about 'if,' in reference to former years; she'll state her full determination to do nothing approaching the smallest shadow of wrong; but she'll avow she should be miserable at the idea of being the cause of your banishment, and therefore she'll entreat you to stop in England and be her brother."
"Be her brother?"
"Ay, and a first-rate position you'll have of it as her brother. There'll be an immense amount of sentiment in the connexion; she'll defer to you in every thing; your presence will always keep every body else off, and she'll never dream of carrying on with any one but you. How could she expect again to meet with such delicacy as you've shown? And if any thingshouldhappen, you're safe to be first in the field and to carry off the cup. Now do you see the line of country?"
"Oh, yes, I see it fast enough, and I've no doubt I can manage it. It's rather a duffing business altogether; however, needs must, and I musn't risk any more flukes. One thing Iamcurious about, Simnel."
"What's that?"
"Why you take such an interest in this business? You first put me on to it, and you've evidently given it some of your precious time in thinking it out while I've been away. Be frank for once in your life, and say--"
"Why does it interestme?" said Simnel, nursing his leg, and giving a grin which showed all his big teeth. "Well, Master Charley, your memory has never been good, but you might occasionally recollect that you owe me eight hundred pounds!"
"Yes," said Beresford, "I know that well enough; but it isn't for that alone. You'll be safe to get that, if I marry and come into money; but there's something more in it than that, I know. It's that business with the name of that firm that you made me say to old Townshend, isn't it now, eh?"
"What, Pigott and Wells!" said Simnel, rocking to and fro--"Pigott and Wells of Combcardingham? Well, perhaps that has something to do with it; who knows? Meantime, stick to what I've told you; begin at once, and in a month's time come to me with a good report."
And so ended the colloquy between this precious pair.
* * * * *
Pursuing his instructions with a certain amount of relish, and all the experience of an accomplished and versatile actor, Mr. Beresford threw himself into his new character with spirit, and made a decided hit in it. All the raillery and nonsense, all the smiles and laughter, had vanished. Owen Meredith had been exchanged for Lord Byron; and Mr. Beresford as a nineteenth-century London-made Giaour was doing terrible execution to that feeble little bit of Mrs. Schröder's anatomy which she called her heart. There was no one to say a kind word, to give proper advice, to the poor little woman in her need. Barbara was absolutely lost to her: she had been two or three times to Great Adullam Street, and Barbara had returned the call; but there was evident restraint on both sides. The outside show of friendship remained, but there was no animating spirit; none such, at least, as to call for the kind of confidence which Alice Schröder would gladly have made, had she received the slightest invitation. But Barbara was not the Barbara of old days: she looked worn and anxious, was constantly preoccupied, and answered at random; she confined herself, moreover, to the merest commonplaces in her conversation, so that Alice got no help from her. Nor from her father had she any supervision: strict to a fault before her marriage, Mr. Townshend, having once settled his daughter, imagined that his duty in life was done, and that henceforth he might devote himself entirely to pleasure, consisting in haunting the City by day and the whist-tables at the Travellers by night. And it began to be noticed that this hitherto model British merchant drank a great deal of wine with his dinner, and a great deal of brandy after it; and there were ugly rumours running about 'Change and drifting through Garraway's; and Townshend's clerks were rather in request at the Bay Tree, and were manifestly pumped as to whether there was any thing wrong with their governor, under the guise of being requested to "put a name" to what they would like to drink. It may be imagined, therefore, that under this state of circumstances Mr. Townshend had neither time nor inclination to bestow any advice upon that daughter, who, as he was in the habit of saying, "had made such a splendid alliance." With her husband Alice had, as has before been said, nothing in common. He was a cold, proud, well-meaning man, who gloried as much as a white-blooded elderly person can be said to glory in his riches and his state, and who liked to have a pretty, elegant, well-dressed woman before him at table, in the same way that he liked to have a stout big-whiskered butler in a white waistcoat behind him. He liked his wife, when he had time to think about her; but he had been brought up in business, and that absorbed his whole attention by day; while giving or going to parties, in which he could spend the result of what he had attained by business, occupied him at night. But he had the highest opinion of Mrs. Schröder's conduct, which he imagined was on a par with every thing else in the establishment--real and genuine; and he paid her bills, and presented her with cheques, with lavish generosity. Only he was not exactly the man on whose bosom a wife could lay her head and confess that she was tempted beyond her strength.
There was a man who, without being much mixed up with this little episode in the great drama of human life, overlooked some of the scenes, and saw the dangers to which one of the characters was rapidly exposing herself. That man was Fred Lyster, the one sentiment of whose life--his love for Alice Townshend--was as fresh and as green and as pure as ever. The announcement of her engagement was a great shock to him, and he had taken care only to meet her face to face once or twice since her marriage. The meeting upset him; and though she was apparently unconscious of any feeling in the matter, it did her no good; and there was no earthly reason why it should be. But he went every where where she went, and watched her in the distance; his ears were always on the alert whenever her name was mentioned in club smoke-rooms and suchlike haunts of gossip; and he found, as he had dreaded with fatal prescience, at Bissett, that Beresford was on the trail. Long and earnestly he deliberated with himself as to what course he should pursue. Should he pick a quarrel on some other topic with Beresford, and shoot him? Shooting had gone out of fashion; and if he killed his man, he should be exiled from England; if he didn't kill him, where was the use of challenging him? Should he speak to Mr. Townshend? or was there no female friend to whom he could apply? Yes; Barbara Churchill. In Barbara Churchill he had the greatest confidence, and to her he would go at once.
For some few months after the events just described, the lives of those who form the characters of this little drama passed evenly on without the occurrence of any circumstance worthy of special record on the part of their historian. Mr. Beresford, implicitly following Mr. Simnel's advice, proceeded to lay siege to Mrs. Schröder in the manner agreed upon, and found his advances received very much after the fashion predicted by his astute friend. In all child-like simplicity Mrs. Schröder firmly believed in the baneful influence which she had unconsciously exercised over her admirer, and strove to make him amends by a charitable and sentimental pity. She could perfectly appreciate all his feelings; for was not she herself misunderstood? had her girlhood's dream been realised? what was wealth, what was position, to her? was she not mated with one who, &c.? So she not merely permitted but encouraged Mr. Beresford's fraternal sentiments; though she by no means eschewed the world and its frivolity, and gave herself up to solitary romance. On the contrary, she went out a great deal into society, and had frequent receptions at home; Beresford being her constant but always unobtrusive companion. It is difficult to say what motive about this time prompted a considerable change in Mr. Schröder's manner towards his wife; but some such change undoubtedly took place. It may possibly have been that the insufficiency of money as a source of happiness may have dawned upon him, steeped as he was to his very lips in constantly-increasing wealth. It may have been that he suddenly awoke to the fact that he was expected to lavish something more than generosity on the young girl whom he had made the head of his house, and who, as he thought, conducted herself with so much propriety. This new feeling may have had its germ one night when they were sitting in their grand-tier box at the Italian Opera, during the performance ofDer Freischütz; and as the old familiar strains rang through the house, Gustav Schröder's memory travelled back for five-and-thirty years, and he saw himself a lad of seventeen, seated in the pit of a little German theatre by the side of a plump little girl, who wore a silver arrow through the great knot of her flaxen hair, and down whose cheeks tears were rolling as she listened to the recital of Agatha's woes. He had loved that plump little Kätchen, loved her with a boy's pure and ardent passion; and when sent to his uncle's counting-house at Frankfort, they had parted with bitter tears, and with the exchange of very cheap and worthless love-tokens. He wondered what had become of that five-groschen piece with the hole drilled through it, and the bit of red ribbon. He wondered why he had never loved since those days. And then he looked up and saw his pretty, elegant little wife, whom every one admired and praised; and it flashed upon him that he had never tried to break through the outer crust of staid formality with which business and the world had covered him; and he determined to try to love and be loved once more. And so Mrs. Schröder, beginning to be dreadfully frightened at the incantation scene, was astonished to find her hand gently taken in her husband's, and on looking up to find his eyes fixed on hers. From that time out Gustav Schröder was a changed man; he took frequent holidays from business; he strove in every way to let his wife see how anxious he was for her happiness; and she saw it, and was to a certain extent touched by his conduct. It needed all Mr. Beresford's sophistry, all his attention and quotation, the employment of all the art in which he had been indoctrinated by his friend Simnel, to make head against the influence which Gustav Schröder's quiet watchfulness and fatherly affection were attaining; for the affection was, after all, more fatherly than conjugal in its display. Mr. Schröder was far too much a man of the world to affect to ignore his age or the result of his life-habits; and no one was better pleased than he to see his wife happy among younger and livelier companions.
A happy influence properly exercised at this time would have been immediately beneficial to Alice Schröder, and have brought matters back into the right course. For instance, ten minutes' walk with Barbara Churchill would have settled the question; for Barbara was to Alice that one grand idol whom we all of us (although we change them at different periods of our lives) set up and worship. And Barbara had not derogated one whit from her high position in Alice's estimation by her marriage. It was exactly the thing that she imagined a girl of her friend's high spirit would do, if pressed to it; there was something romantic in it, savouring of the legends of the high dames of old, who gave themselves to poets after scorning kings; and the whole process entirely agreed with certain of thedictaof Mr. Owen Meredith, who, as has been explained, was poet-laureate at the Schröder court. And Alice called on Barbara, and petted her and praised her, and in her silly little way did every thing possible to prevent the smallestrapprochementbetween them. And then Alice went away, and cried in the carriage on her way home, and declared that Barbara was cruel and unkind and unjust, and had utterly changed in every thing.
Were these assertions correct? I fear that at all events they had a certain proportion of truth. The spirit which had induced Barbara Lexden to marry a man without money, and of, as her friends thought, inferior position; which had made her scorn the threats of being cast off by those among whom her life had hitherto been placed, and to hold to one whom she knew but little, yet trusted much,--this same spirit made her brave the fate to which she had resigned herself, and determined that if she repined, it should be in secret and unheard. Itwasa mistake;thatshe had already confessed to herself with bitter tears many and many a time; done in haste, repented at leisure--the old, old story, the old seductive myth, which will find believers for ever and aye. How often, brooding in the solitude of her chamber, had she gone over the whole business in her mind, linking bit to bit, and endeavouring to find out where the reality had fallen short of the anticipation!
They were poor. Well! had she not expected poverty; had not Frank told her plainly and honourably of his position before he made any declaration? Yes; but she did not understand poverty exactly as she had found it. She knew that they would not be able to give parties, nor to go to the Opera, nor that kind of thing; but she certainly thought that they would go out sometimes, and that she should not be stuck at home for ever. Of course the people who gave parties had a great deal of expense; but those who went to them had none; and it was not expected that any newly-married people living in a small way should entertain in return. But then Frank, after positively refusing to go out a third night running, had given way; but had shaken his head, and looked so serious over a glove-bill which he happened to see on her dressing-table, that she threw on her dressing-gown, and bade him go by himself. She did not care about going out; but if she went, she would be decent; she had always been considered to have a reputation for good taste, and nothing on earth should make her a dowdy now. She would sooner stay at home always; indeed there was little enough to go out for, having to be jolted in those horrible cabs, that crawled along the streets, with no room for one's dress, and with the certainty of being covered with dust or straw, or some dreadful stuff, when you got out; and then the insolence of the driver!
And her home? It was small, and dull, and dreary; but had she been led to anticipate any thing else? No; she supposed not. And yet she wore herself out in those gaunt dark rooms, and chafed in her prison like a bird in its cage. She had always been a bad correspondent, and since her marriage had scarcely written any letters at all; but she would sit mooning over the pages of a novel, or over the stitches of her embroidery, until book or work would fall from her hand; and there she would remain, looking intently at nothing, staring vacantly before her. Frank caused her to be supplied regularly with a copy of theStatesman, and in it she tried to read his articles--an honest attempt in which she dismally failed. Her aunt had been somewhat of a keen politician, and Barbara was sufficiently well informed on the position of English parties to bear her share in a dinner-table dialogue; but foreign affairs principally occupied Frank's pen in theStatesman; and after an attempted course of reading about Moldo-Wallachia, Schleswig-Holstein, and the Principalities, including an immense amount of virtuous indignation, the reason for which she did not comprehend, and the object of which she could not make out, poor Barbara gave it up in despair. She was in the habit of glancing occasionally at that portion of the paper in which Mr. Henchman chronicled the doings of the fashionable world, and recorded the names of those present at great entertainments; and sometimes when Barbara would raise her eyes from the paper and look down the hot vista of frowning houses in Great Adullam Street, where dust and straw were blowing in a penetrating cloud, and whence the dismal howling of itinerant hucksters fell upon the ear, she, remembering what part she had recently played among those of whom she had been reading, and contrasting it with her then life, would bite her lip until the blood started, and sob bitterly.
Where was her spirit, do you ask? Has she not been represented as a girl of special spirit and pluck? Did not the early-narrated incidents of her career, her very marriage, prove this? and is it natural that she should break down before petty annoyances such as these? These questions have been asked; and all I can reply is, that I paint according to my lights and to my experience of life; and I believe that there are hundreds of women of spirit who would bear the amputation of a finger with more fortitude than the non-arrival of a bonnet, and who suffer less in separation from those they dearly love than in the necessity for a daily inspection of the bread-pan.
And Frank, what of him? Had Barbara been deceived in him? had she misjudged his heart, his truth, his love? Not one whit; and yet how different he seemed! Throughout his life, Frank Churchill had acted on impulse, and had generally pulled through with extraordinary success. We have seen how, in the railway-journey back to Bissett, he had argued with himself, had persuaded himself into the determination of leaving the place and flying from temptation, and how on the impulse of a moment he settled the career of his life. To say he had repented of that step, would have been untrue; equally false would it have been to say that he had not been seriously disappointed in its result. The great charm of Barbara Lexden in his eyes had been her dissimilarity from other women. In the quiet circles in which he moved, there was no one kin to her; she stood out in bold relief among the fussy wives and meek colourless daughters of his friends, seeming a being of another sphere. And now, strange to say, this very contrast which had so captivated him, was his bane. What though the wives were fussy; they attended to their households with the utmost regularity, investigating the smallest matters of domestic detail, keeping down expenses here, making shift there, and having a comfortable home ready for their husbands wearied out with their work. What though the daughters were meek and colourless, without a fragment of taste in dress, without a spark of spirit, without one atom of dash; they were ready to strum the piano, or to play endless games of whist or picquet, when called upon, to enjoy thoroughly such little society as they had among themselves, and, in fact, to make themselves generally amiable. "Their girls did not lollop on the sofa and read trashy novels all day tong, my dear!" as Mrs. Harding more than once remarked; "they were not aristocrats, and couldn't jabber Italian; but they didn't lie in bed to breakfast, or be always fiddling with their hair, or dressing or undressing themselves twenty times a day. If those were aristocratic manners, the less she had of them the better."
All this talk, and there was much of it perpetually current, reached Frank Churchill's ears through his mother, and if it did not render him actually unhappy, at least dashed his spirits and checked his joys. He would sit for hours pondering over these things, thinking of his past, when he had only himself and his old mother to care for, wondering what would have been his future, supposing he had married one of the daughters of Mesopotamia, and settled down into the snug humdrum life pursued by those colonists. And then sometimes Barbara would break in upon his reverie, and, looking so brilliantly handsome, would come up and kiss his forehead, and say a few loving words untinged by regret or complaint; and he would rejoice in the choice he had made, and thank that fortune which had thrown such a treasure in his way.
There is no doubt that, without in the least degree intending it (indeed, what sacrifice had she not made, would she not make, for her son?), old Mrs. Churchill was a fruitful cause of the petty dissensions which took place between Barbara and her husband. Devoted to Frank, to her natural anxiety for his happiness was superadded an invincible jealousy of the woman who had supplanted his mother in his regard, or at least had pushed her from the highest position therein. Against the actuations of this feeling the old lady strove with all her strength, and made great way; but, like many other intending victors, she imagined the day gained before the enemy had been thoroughly repulsed, and then, neglecting her outposts, laid herself open to an irresistible attack. At first Frank laughed away all these remarks, telling his mother that the difference of age between her and Barbara, the difference of their lives and bringing up, the difference in the style of the present time and the days when Mrs. Churchill lived in the world, caused her to think the young wife's proceedings singular, and her demeanour odd. Butsaepe cadendo, by constant trituration the old lady's notions got grafted into his brain, and most of the weary self-communings and self-torturings which Frank had, sprung from his mother's unintentional planting.
One day about noon old Mrs. Churchill knocked at the door of Frank's little study, and entering found her son hard at work on an article he was preparing for a review. The old lady seemed in great spirits, kissed her son most affectionately, and said: "Busy as ever, Frank my darling? As I often used to say, you'll grow to your desk one day, you stick at it so--at least you used to when I lived with you; I don't know much of what you do now;" and she gave a little sigh, made doubly apparent by an attempt to stifle it, as she sat down.
"Why, mum, what nonsense!" said Frank; "you see as much of me as any body now--as much as Barbara, at all events."
"Oh, by the way, how is Barbara?"
"Well, not very brilliant this morning; she's got one of her headaches, and I persuaded her to breakfast in bed."
"Ah, she didn't take much persuading, I fancy. The young girls nowadays are very different from what I remember them; but she'd be tired, poor child, waiting up for you last night."
"She did no such thing, I'm delighted to say," said Frank, smiling, "as I had to write upon the result of the debate, and didn't get home until nearly three o'clock. Poor Barbara was sound asleep at that time, and had been so for some hours."
"Ah, ever since her visitor went away, I suppose?"
"Her visitor? What visitor?"
"Didn't she tell you? How odd! I called in last evening for a volume ofBlunt on the Pentateuch, and found Captain Lyster here chatting. How odd that Barbara didn't mention it!"
"She was too sleepy both last night and this morning, I imagine," said Frank: "she has frequently told me of his visits."
"Oh, yes, he calls here very often."
"He's a very pleasant fellow," said Frank.
"Is he?" said the old lady, in rather acrid tones. "I didn't think you knew him."
"Not know him!" exclaimed Frank; "why, mother dear, how on earth should he call here if I didn't know him?"
"He might be a friend of your wife's, my dear."
"But my wife's friends are mine, are they not?"
"It does not always follow, Frank," said the old lady calmly; "besides, I thought if he had been a friend of yours, he would have calledsometimeswhen you were at home."
Frank looked up quickly with a flushed face; then said, "What nonsense, mum! the man is an old friend of Barbara's, and comes at such times as are most convenient to himself. You don't understand the set of people he lives with, mum."
"Very likely not, my dear; and I'm sure I'm not sorry for it; for they seem strange enough; at least to a quiet old-fashioned body like myself, who was taught never to receive male friends when my husband--however, that's neither here nor there." And Mrs. Churchill bustled out.
When Barbara came down to luncheon, Frank said to her, "I hear you had Captain Lyster here, last night, Barbara."
"Oh, yes," she replied, "I forgot to tell you; he sat here some time."
"He comes pretty frequently, doesn't he?"
"I don't know," said Barbara, looking up; "I never counted the number of times; you always hear when he has been."
"I wish you'd do something for me, Barbara," said Frank.
"Well, what is it?"
"Just tell Lyster it would be better if he could contrive to call when I'm at home."
"Why?" asked Barbara pointedly.
"Why--well--upon my word--I scarcely know why--except that people talk, you know; and it's better--eh? don't you think?" stammered Frank. He had acted on impulse again, and felt confoundedly ashamed of himself.
"I distinctly decline to do any thing of the sort. I wonder Frank, you're not ashamed to propose such a thing to me; but I can see what influence has been at work."
"There has been no influence at all; only I choose--"
"AndIchoose that you should find a fitter person than your wife to deliver insulting messages to your friends!"
"Barbara suppose I were to insist upon your not receiving this man again?"
"You had better not, Frank," said she, moving towards the door; "you don't know whom you have to deal with." And she swept out of the room.
And this was Barbara's first lesson in themanège.