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It is eleven o'clock in the morning on the first day of Paul's return to work, and business in the Principal Registrar's room at H.M. Stannaries is in full swing.
Mr. Courtney has just arrived, and is seated before the brightly-burning fire--the old gentleman used to harass the souls of the messengers in reference to this fire--readingThe Morning Post. He looks much better for his holiday, and is wigged, and curled, and buckled, and girthed, and generally got up as much as ever.
George Wainwright is seated at his desk, with several sheets of manuscript before him, which he is scoring through with a pencil, and annotating marginally; from time to time uttering contemptuous grunts of "Pshaw!" and "Stuff!" and "No nominative case," greatly to the disgust of Mr. Billy Dunlop, who is the author of the work in course of supervision.
Mr. Dunlop, whose commencement of his official duties consists hitherto in his having made one large blot on a sheet of foolscap, and newly nibbed a quill pen, whistles softly to himself as he regards the work of demolition going on, and mutters in an undertone, "Ursa Major is going it this morning. I shall have all that infernalprécisto write over again."
And Paul Derinzy is seated at his desk, but he has not even attempted the pretext of doing any work.
His chin is resting on his hands, and he is gazing straight before him, looking across at George, but not seeing him in the least, for his thoughts are busily engaged elsewhere. George Wainwright is the first to speak.
"I can't compliment you on your effort, my dear Billy," said he laughing, and looking across to Mr. Dunlop. "I don't think I have come across a production in which there was such an entire absence of sense, grammar, and cohesion as thisprécisof yours, which you have made of the Falmouth collector's report."
"All right, sir," said Mr. Dunlop. "Cut away by all means, don't mind me; sharpen your great wit, and make me the block. What says the poet? 'Great wit to madness often is allied;' and as that is all in your line, fire away."
"What is that you are saying, my dear George?" said Mr. Courtney, looking up from his newspaper. "Our good friend Dunlop been unsuccessful in his praiseworthy attempt?"
"So far as I can see, sir, from the manner in which my dear George's pencil has been at work, our good friend Dunlop seems to have gone a regular mucker with his praiseworthy attempt," said Mr. Dunlop; "and had I any doubt upon the subject, my dear George is good enough to express his opinion of my humble endeavours with a frankness and outspoken candour which do him credit."
"Here, catch hold!" cried George, grinning as he twisted the sheets together, and throwing them across to Billy. "Copy my corrections exactly, and we shall be able to drag you into the first class, and get you your promotion as the reward of merit before you are seventy years old. Fire away, Billy; get on with it at once."
Mr. Dunlop took the papers, placed them before him, and dipped his pen in the ink; but before writing, he looked up with a serio-comic air, and said, "May I be permitted to ask, sir, why the work in this room is to be entirely confined to one of the junior clerks; and why the other, a gentleman who has the advantage of having just returned from the country, where he has enjoyed fresh air, and no doubt exercise, and freedom from that official labour which is the curse of fallen man--why this gentleman is permitted to sit staring vacantly before him, folding his hands like the celebrated slothful person immortalised by Dr. Watts?"
This remark was unheard by Paul; but when Mr. Courtney addressed him, he started and looked up.
"Yes, by-the-way, my dear boy," said the old gentleman, "I, as well as our friend Dunlop, have remarked that you seem scarcely to have benefited by your holiday; there is a kind of want of tone about you, I notice. Your people's place is in Dorsetshire, is it not? Relaxing, eh, and that kind of thing? House full of company, no doubt; shooting all day; billiards, private theatricals, flirtations, and that kind of thing. Doesn't do, my dear boy! doesn't do for men like us, who are all the rest of the year engaged in official drudgery; doesn't do, depend upon it."
And here Mr. Courtney laid downThe Morning Post, and proceeded to commence his private correspondence.
"Oh, I'm all right, Chief," said Paul; "a little tired after my journey, perhaps--that's all; a little too smoke-dried by old George over there, for we got a carriage to ourselves, and I think his pipe was blazing all the way to town." Then turning to Dunlop, "I'll walk into the work presently, Billy, and you'll be able to take some leave, if you want any."
"No, thank you, old man," said Billy Dunlop; "I don't want to be away till just after Christmas. Within the month following that festive day, the number of persons engaged in trade who have a small amount to make up by a given period is extraordinary; and I feel it my duty to go into the country about that time, in order that no one may indulge any delusive hopes of pecuniary assistance from me."
After a few minutes George Wainwright stepped across to Paul's desk, and leaning over it, said in a low voice, "What's the matter? Nothing fresh since your arrival?"
"No, nothing at all," said Paul, in the same tone. "I found a note from her at the club, saying that she would meet me this afternoon, and expressed surprise at my having imagined that there had been any decrease in the warmth of her feelings for me, that's all."
"And what makes you so horribly downcast?"
"I cannot tell; I have a sense of oppression over me which I find it impossible to shake off. I had an idea that the mere fact of my return to London, the knowledge that I was so much nearer to her, would have dispersed it; but this morning it seems worse than ever. I think some of it is due to a certain feeling of remorse which I felt on parting with my mother yesterday; she seemed so horribly grieved about the failure of that other business, you know."
"I think you may acquit yourself entirely on that score," said George, looking earnestly at his friend, "as I shall probably be able to prove to you before long."
"What do you mean?" said Paul, in astonishment; "how can you know anything about it?"
"Impossible for me to say just now," replied George; "control your curiosity for yet a short time longer, and you shall know. Meanwhile you may depend on what I have said to you. I only wish you were as well out of this other affair."
No more was said on the subject, and Paul worked on as best he might, impervious to the sarcasms which his occasional fits of musing evoked from Mr. Dunlop.
Soon after two o'clock he closed his blotting-book, and asked the Chief's leave to go away; alleging with a laugh that he had scarcely got acclimatised to the place, and that he must slide into his work by degrees.
Good-natured Mr. Courtney of course assented, and after the performance of a rapid toilet, Paul hurried away.
The depression under which he laboured still continued in its fullest force, and he could not help contrasting his present feelings with those which animated him in the first days of his acquaintance with Daisy. Then all was bright and roseate; now all was dull and dark. His ideas as to the future were indeed no more definite then than they were now; but the haze which hung over it then and shrouded it from his view was a light summer mist; not so now--a dense gloomy fog. And she was changed; he feared there could be no doubt of that. In a few minutes he should be able to ascertain whether there was any foundation for his suspicions; in the meantime he indulged them to the fullest extent. The tone of her letters had certainly altered. The letters themselves were written as though she were preoccupied at the time, and read like mere perfunctory performances, executed under a sense of duty, and finished with a sigh of relief.
What should have changed her? Most men would have supposed at once, on finding an alteration in the tone and manner of the woman they love, that she had been receiving attentions in some other quarter. Paul hesitated to do this; not that he was not aware of the power of Daisy's beauty and attractiveness, nor entirely because of his faith in her, but principally because they had gone on for a certain number of months together, during all which time she must have had innumerable chances of throwing him over and behaving falsely to him had she been so disposed; while all the time she had kept true to him.
Les absents ont toujours tort, says the proverb. Could that have been the reason? What woman was to be trusted? How mad it was of him to leave her for so long! It was only in order to satisfy his mother, and to show her how impossible it was for him to comply with this project which she had so long cherished for his future, that he had consented to go down to Devonshire. By-the-way, what was that that George had hinted at? "There need be no remorse on his part," George had said about the refusal to fulfil his mother's wishes in regard to marrying Annette. What could he have meant? Was it possible that his friend had really been taken with the girl? He had some notion of the kind down at Beachborough, but had dismissed it from his mind as unworthy serious consideration. Now there really seemed to be some foundation for the notion, and Annette certainly cared for him. Fancy them married! How jolly it would be! What a capital husband George would make, and what a pleasant house it would be to go to! Fancy "old George" tremendously rich, with a lot of money, going in to give swell parties, and all that kind of thing! No, he could not fancy that; whatever income he had, George would always remain the same glorious, simple-minded, honest, splendid fellow that he was now.
Poor oldmater!how awfully she seemed to take his decision to heart! She said this had been her pet project for so many years, and it was hard to see it overthrown at last. George wouldn't do as well, you suppose? No; it was for her own boy, her own darling, thespes gregis, that she wanted the wealth and the position; as though that would be the least value, if there were not happiness. His mother didn't seem to understand that, and how could he have any happiness without Daisy? Oh, confound it! there, he had run off that track of thought for a few minutes, and had a small respite; and now he was on it again, and as miserable as ever.
Turning over these thoughts in his mind, Paul Derinzy hurried through the streets and across the Park, and speedily reached the well-known place of meeting. It was a sharp bright day in the early winter. The leaves were off the trees now, and there was an uninterrupted view for many hundred yards. Paul gazed eagerly about him, but could see nothing of Daisy. Usually, to the discredit of his gallantry, she had been first to arrive; now she was not there, although the time for meeting was past; and Paul took it as a bad omen, and his heart sank within him.
He took two or three turns up and down the dreary avenue, and at length Daisy appeared in sight. He hurried to meet her, and as she approached him he could not help being struck with her marvellous beauty.
Paul would have sworn, had he been asked--but her face was ever present to him during the time of his absence--that he felt that he must have forgotten it, or she must have wonderfully improved, so astonished was he at her appearance. She had been walking fast, and a splendid colour glowed in her cheeks. Her eyes were unusually bright too; her dress, which was always neat and in excellent taste, seemed to Paul to be made of some richer and softer material than she was in the habit of wearing. She smiled pleasantly at him as he neared her, and all his gloom for a time melted away.
"My own, my darling!" that was all he said, as he took both her hands in his, and looked down lovingly into her eyes.
"I am a little late, Paul, I am afraid," said Daisy; "but Madame had something particular to be done, and as she has been very good in giving me holidays lately, I did not like to pass the work which she wished me to do to anyone else."
"Never mind, pet; you are here at last, and I am in heaven," said Paul. "How splendidly handsome you look, Daisy! What have you been doing?"
"Nothing, that I know of, in particular," said the girl, "beyond having a little less work and a little more fresh air. Rest and exercise have been my sole cosmetics."
"Holidays and fresh air, eh, miss?" said Paul, smiling rather grimly; "and you never could get an hour to come out with me, Daisy!"
"Because it was in the height of the season, when our work was incessant from morning till night, that you were good enough to ask me, Mr. Douglas," said Daisy, making a littlemoue.
"And when I am away you find time to go out."
"Exactly," said Daisy. "There, isn't this delicious? You were away on a holiday yourself, and I believe you are actually annoyed because during your highness's absence I managed to enjoy myself."
"No, no, Daisy; you mustn't accuse me of that," said Paul; "I am not so selfish as all that! However, never mind. Tell me now all you have been doing."
"No; do you first tell me how you have been enjoying yourself. Were 'your people,' as you call them, very glad to see you; and did they make much of you, as in duty bound?"
There was, whether intentionally or not, a slight inflection of sarcasm in her tone which jarred upon Paul's nerves.
"They were very glad to see me, and made much of me in the only way parents can do," said he quietly. "I often think how foolishly, worse than foolishly, we behave while we have them with us, and only recognise our proper duty to them when it is too late."
"Ye-es," said Daisy, struggling to repress a yawn. She was thinking of something else very different from filial duty, and was beginning to be bored.
"You do not seem to enter into those sentiments," said Paul; "but that is because you have no parents."
"Perhaps so," said the girl; "but even if I had, I scarcely think I should be tempted to gush; gushing is very much out of my line."
Paul looked at her strangely. He had never heard her so hard, so cold, so sardonic before.
"No," he said, after a moment's pause; "you generally manage to have a wonderful control of your feelings; it only needed one to look through your recent letters to prove that."
"What was the matter with my letters?" said Daisy, looking up at him so bewitchingly at that moment that all Paul's anger vanished.
"The matter with them! Nothing, my darling, except that I thought they were a little cold; but perhaps that was my fault."
"How do you mean your fault?"
"Perhaps I ought not to have gone away, to have left you for so long."
"My dear Paul, what are you thinking of? What possible claim have I on you, that you should deprive yourself of a holiday and give up visiting your friends on my account?"
"What claim have you! The claim of being dearer to me than any person in the world; the claim of being the one creature for whom I care beyond all others. Can there be a greater claim than this?"
She looked at him quietly and almost pityingly as she said:
"I thought you would have given up all this romantic nonsense, Paul; I thought you would have come back infinitely more rational and practical than you were when you left."
"I suppose that is what you pride yourself on having become," said Paul, with a dash of bitterness in his tone; "'rational' and 'practical,' and 'romantic nonsense!' You didn't call it by that name when we used to walk in this place but a very few weeks ago."
"It was different then," said Daisy, looking round with a shudder.
"It was, indeed," said Paul. "There is something gone besides leaves from the trees."
"And what is that?" asked Daisy, provokingly.
"Love from you and hope from me," said Paul. Then, with a sudden access of passion: "Oh, my darling!" he cried, "my own love, Daisy, why are you behaving thus to me? For the last few days I have felt certain that something was impending. I have had a dull, dead weight on my spirits. I attributed it to the difference in the tone of your letters, but I thought that would all be dispelled when we met. I had no idea it would be as bad as this."
The girl looked up at him steadily, but seemed to be rather angered than touched at this sudden outburst.
"My dear Paul," said she, "I am again compelled to ask you to be at least rational. What could you have expected would have been the end of our acquaintance?"
"The end!" cried Paul. "I--I never thought about that; I never thought that there would be an end."
"Exactly," said Daisy; "and yet you wonder at my accusing you of want of practicality. Let us go through this matter quietly. You seek and make my acquaintance; you appear to admire me very much, and ask for opportunities of meeting me; these opportunities you have, and you then profess to be deeply in love with me. All this is very nice; we walk and talk like young people in the old story-books. But there is a strong spice of worldliness mixed up with the simplicity of both of us: all the time that you are talking and saying your sweetest things you are in a desperate fright lest any of your acquaintances shall see you. I am perfectly keen enough to notice this; and when I tax you with it, you confess it sheepishly, and as good as tell me that it would be impossible for you, on account of your family, to enter into any lasting alliance with a milliner's assistant. Now, what on earth do you propose to yourself, my dear Paul, or did you propose, when you came here to meet me just now? You have had plenty of time to think over this affair down in the country, and have, I suppose, arrived at some intention; or did you possibly suppose that we could go on mooning away our lives as we have done during the past six months?"
She stopped; and Paul, finding she expected some reply, said hesitatingly:
"I--I thought it would go on just the same."
"You are a very child, my dear Paul," said Daisy, "not to see that such a thing is impossible. If, before you left town, you had spoken at all distinctly as regards the future, if you had asked me to marry you--not now, I don't say immediately, but in the course of a certain given time--matters would have stood very differently."
"You say if Ihadasked you," said Paul, with an appealing glance at her. "Suppose I were to ask you now?"
"It would be too late," said Daisy, with a short laugh. Then, suddenly changing her tone, she cried, "Do you imagine that, in what I have just said, I was spelling for you to make me an offer? Do you imagine that I would so demean myself? Do you think that I have no pride? I can tell you, I should feel I was doing quite as great an honour to your family by coming into it as they could possibly do to me by receiving me into it. Do you imagine that I was not merely going calmly to wait until it pleased your highness to throw the handkerchief in my direction, but that I was actually making signs to attract your attention to my eager desire for preferment?"
"Daisy, Daisy," interrupted Paul, "what are you saying?"
"Simply the truth; I am speaking out what we both of us know to be true. There is no good shilly-shallying any longer this way, Paul Douglas; we are neither of us so very childlike, we are both of us out of our teens, and we live in a world where Strephon and Daphne will find themselves horribly out of place."
There was a pause for a few moments, and then Paul said in a low voice:
"You must pardon me, Daisy, if I don't answer you straight at once and to the purpose. It is rather a facer for a fellow who has gone away and left a girl, as he imagines, very much attached to him, and certainly most loving and affectionate in her words and manner, to find her, on his return, perfectly changed, and talking about being practical and rational, and that kind of thing. I daresay I was a fool; I daresay you thought I was giving myself airs when I talked about my family, and kept in this secluded part of the Park in order that we might not run the risk of meeting anybody I knew. God knows I didn't intend so, child; God knows I would have done nothing that I thought could have wounded your feelings in the very slightest degree. You say that if I had spoken to you before I left town about marrying you, matters would have stood differently. The truth is, until I went out of town, until I was far away from you and knew I was beyond your reach, until I felt that never-ceasing want of your society and companionship, that ever-present desire to hear your voice and take your hand and look into your darling eyes, I did not know how much I was in love with you. I know it now, Daisy, I feel it all now, and the idea of having to pass the remainder of my life without you drives me mad. You won't let it come to this, Daisy--oh, my own darling one, you won't let it come to this!"
His voice trembled as he spoke these last words, and he was strangely agitated. There was real pity, and perhaps a little look of love, in Daisy's eyes, but she only said:
"My dear Paul, sooner or later it must come to this. Even were there no other reasons, it would be impossible for me to accept an offer of marriage which it might be truly said I have literally wrung from you. If you love me very much--there, you need not protest; we will allow that to pass, and take it for granted that you do--you are desperately spooney upon me, as the phrase is, Paul; but how long will you continue in that state? and when the first force of your passion is spent and past, you will find yourself tied to a wife who, as you will not fail to say to yourself--you don't think so now, but there is no doubt about it--insisted on your marrying her."
"I should not have been cad enough to think any such thing!" cried Paul.
"You would always be too much of a gentleman to say it, I know," said Daisy, "but you could not help thinking it; and the mere knowledge that you thought it would distress me beyond measure. No, Paul, it would not do; depend upon it, it would not do."
"Do you mean to tell me, then," said Paul, in a trembling voice, "that you have finally decided in this matter?"
"I have."
"And your decision is----"
"That it will be better for us to say goodbye, and part as friends."
"And you--you will not marry me, Daisy?"
"Under the circumstances I cannot, Paul. What I might have done, had the proposal been made at a different time and in a different way, I cannot tell; but coming as it has, it is impossible."
"And do you think I am weak enough not to see through all this?" cried Paul furiously. "Do you think I am so slow of hearing or so uninterested in what you say that I did not catch the words, 'even if there were not other reasons,' when you first began to explain why you could not accept my offer; and do you think it is not palpable to me at once what those 'other reasons' are? You have been playing the false during my absence; your woman's vanity is so great that, knowing me as you do, being fully aware of the love, passion, call it what you will, that I had for you, you couldn't even remain content with that during the few weeks I was away, but must get some fresh admirer to minister to it!"
"Paul--Mr. Douglas!" cried Daisy.
"I will speak--I will be heard! This is the last chance I shall have, and I will avail myself of it. You have wrecked my life and destroyed all my hopes, and yet you think that I am to make no protest against all that you have done! All the time that I was away I was wearing you in my heart, checking off with delight the death of each day which brought nearer the hour of my return to you; and now I have returned to find you sneer at those relations between us which made me so happy, and bidding me be practical, rational; bidding me, in point of fact, though not in words, abjure all my love and give you up contentedly, see you go to someone else. It is too hard, it is too hard, Daisy! You cannot force this upon me."
He seized her hand and looked imploringly into her eyes.
The girl made no attempt to withdraw her hand, it remained passively within his; but his passionate manner met no response in her glance, and the tones of her voice were calm and unbroken as she said:
"I see now, more than ever, how right I was in my determination. I accused you of being childish, and you have proved yourself so, far more thoroughly than I had anticipated. Seeing the chance of your toy being taken away from you, you consent to do what before you would never have thought of, in order to secure it. You scold, and abuse, and beg, and implore in the same breath: almost in the same sentence you declare your love for me and insult me; a continuance of such a state of things would be impossible. We had better shake hands and part."
During this speech she had withdrawn her hand, but at the close she offered it to him again.
Paul Derinzy, however, drew himself up; for an instant he seemed as though about to speak to her, but it was evident he doubted his power of self-command, his eyes filled with tears, and his under-lip trembled visibly. Then with a strong effort he recovered himself, took off his hat, and making a formal bow, hurried away.
"It would never have done," said Daisy, looking after him. Then, as she started on her homeward walk, she said, "It would have been neither one thing nor the other; a kind of genteel poverty. Unrecognised by his relations, he would soon have sickened of that kind of life, and I should have been left to my own devices, to mope and pine at home or amuse myself abroad; in either case, a very undesirable mode of life. My vanity Paul talked about, that could not live without another admirer! Poor fellow, he wasn't right there. It wasn't vanity; it was a craving for luxury and position that first led me to listen to this man. I have to give him my answer by the end of the week. I don't think there is much doubt as to what it will be."
A loud cry interrupted her thoughts just at this moment, and looking up, she saw a carriage, drawn by a pair of splendid horses, turning into the street that she was about to cross. The coachman and footman sitting on the box called out to warn her of her danger, and as she sprang back, they looked at her and laughed insolently. A woman, handsome and young, and splendidly dressed in sables, lay back in the barouche, and looked at the girl, who was covered with a mud-shower whirling from the wheels, with a glance half of pity, half of contempt.
Daisy's face was ablaze in an instant.
"I have been a poverty-stricken drudge long enough," she said. "Now I will ride in my own carriage, and stop all chance of insults such as these."
Paul Derinzy's was not the only perturbed spirit in the Principal Registrar's room of the Stannaries Office. To his own extreme astonishment, George Wainwright found that his equable spirits and calm philosophic temperament had entirely deserted him, and that he had become silent, moody, and, he was afraid, sometimes irritable. He knew perfectly the cause of this change, and did not attempt to disguise it from himself. He knew that he was suffering from that malady which sooner or later attacks us all, and which, like many other maladies, is more safely got over and disposed of when it comes upon us in youth. That period had passed with George Wainwright. He shook his head rather grimly as he surveyed in the glass the brown crisp hair, already beginning to be sprinkled with gray, and the lines round the mouth and eyes, which seemed to have increased at such a confoundedly quick rate lately; and he did not attempt to fight with the malady. He seemed to confess that he could make no head against it, and that his best plan was to succumb to its force, and let it do with him as it would.
"It has come to me somewhat late in life, and I suppose it is the worse on that account," said honest old George to himself; "but I see plainly there is no use in attempting to resist it, and that mine may be looked upon as a settled case. Strange, too, how it has all come about that my going down into Devonshire to rescue Paul from a scrape should have been the cause of my falling into one myself, and into a far more helpless one than that out of which he wanted my help. He has, at all events, the resources of hope. Time may soften the parental anger; and even if it does not, he can afford to set it at defiance, so far as Annette is concerned; while as for Daisy, as he calls her, if he chooses to ignore conventionality, and what the world will think, and Mrs. Grundy will say--and it doesn't seem to me to be a very hard task to do that, though harder perhaps for a dashing young fellow like him than a middle-aged hermit like myself--he may marry the girl, and, like the people in the story-books, live happy ever after. But my look-out is very different. I have examined mine own heart. God knows, with as much strict search as I could bring to bear upon it, and I feel that, so far as Annette is concerned, I am irretrievably---- And I never thought I could love anyone at all in this kind of way. I am perfectly certain that I shall never love anyone else; and therein lies the utter hopelessness of the case. I buoy myself up with the belief that this darling child is, I may almost say, attached to me--that she feels for me what in another person would be affection and attachment. She says that I understand her better than anyone else; and that she is happier in my society than in that of any other person. What more could the wisest among us say to show their preference? And yet the hopelessness, the utter hopelessness! That conversation with my father has left no doubt on my mind that he, at all events, regards her malady as incurable; and though the fact of my comprehending her so thoroughly might possibly have some good effect upon her disease, and at all events would tend to mitigate and soften her affliction, any thought of marriage with her would be impossible. Even I myself, who am regarded, I know, by these lads at the office as a kind of social iconoclast, stand aghast at the idea, and at once acknowledge my terror of Mrs. Grundy's remark. And yet it seems so hard to give her up. My life, which was such a happy one, in its quiet, and what might almost be called its solitude, seems to attend me no more. I am restless and uneasy; I find no solace in my books or my work, and have even neglected poormaman, so occupied are my thoughts with this one subject. I cannot shake it off, I cannot rid myself of its influence. It is ever present on my mind, and unless something happens to effect a radical change in my state, I shall knock myself up and be ill. I feel that coming upon me to a certainty. A good sharp travel is the only thing which would be of any use: the remedy experienced by the man of whom my father is so fond of talking--who found relief from the utter prostration and misery which he underwent at the death of his only son by the intense study of mathematics--would not help me one atom. I cannot apply my mind--or what I call my mind--to anything just now. The figure of this girl comes between me and the paper; her voice is always ringing in my ears; her constrained eager regard, gradually melting into quiet confidence, is ever before me: and, in fact, I begin to feel myself a thorough specimen of an old fool hopelessly in love."
George Wainwright judged no man harshly but himself. When he appeared at the bar of his own tribunal, he conducted the cross-examination with Spartan sternness; and this was the result--he saw the impossibility of fighting against the passion which had obtained such mastery over him; and he had almost made up his mind to seek safety in flight--to plead ill-health, and to go away from England on some prolonged travel--when an incident occurred which altered his determination.
One morning he was sitting at his desk at the Stannaries Office, mechanically opening his correspondence and arranging the papers before him--as usual he had been the first to arrive, and none of his colleagues were present--when Paul Derinzy entered the room. George noticed with regret that his friend's appearance had altered very much for the worse during the last few days. His face looked wan and peaked, his usual sallow complexion had changed to a dead-white, and the expression of his eyes was dull and lustreless. There never was much power of work in Paul; but there had been next to nothing lately. George had noticed him sitting at his desk, his eyes bent vacantly on the paper before him, his thoughts evidently very far away. Since their return, there has not been very much interchange of confidence between them; but George knows perfectly well that matters are not going quite straight in Paul's relations with Daisy, and that the lad is spiritless and miserable in consequence. George Wainwright's great heart would at any time have compassionated his friend's position; but under present circumstances he was especially able to appreciate and sympathise with the position.
"At it as usual, George," said Paul, after the first curt salutation. "How you have the heart to stick to this confounded grind in the way you do, quite beats me. I begin to loathe the place, and the papers, and all the infernal lot." And with an indignant sweep of his arm he cleared a space in front of him, and resting his face on his hands, sat contemplating his friend.
"Begin to loathe, my dear Paul?" said George, with a slight smile; "I thought you had progressed pretty well long ago in your hatred to the state of life to which you have been called. Yes, I am grinding away as usual, and indeed have put a little extra power on just now."
"What!" said Paul, with a look of disgust at a large array of tape-tied official documents neatly spread out before his friend; "are those infernal papers heavier than ever?"
"No, not that," said George; "there seems to be about the usual number of them; but I want to make a clearance, and not to leave the slightest arrear when I go away."
"Go away!" repeated Paul. "What do you mean? You have only just returned; you don't mean to say you are going away again?"
"That is really delicious," said George; "you, who have had your full six weeks' leave, turn round and fling my poor little fortnight in my teeth. Yes, I actually purpose taking the remainder of my holiday; a great crime, no doubt, but one which must be excused under special circumstances. I am a little overworked, and not a little out of sorts; and I find I must get away at once."
"Not at once," said Paul, with a half-comic look at his friend; "I don't think I would go away just now, if I were you."
"Why not?" asked George.
"Because you might miss seeing some people for whom you have, as I believe, a great regard," said Paul, with the same quaint expression.
"And they are----"
"My people. If the fashionable chronicler took any notice of them, he would probably report: 'We understand that Captain and Mrs. Derinzy, accompanied by their niece Miss Annette Derinzy, will shortly arrive at 94, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, from their marine residence, The Tower, Beachborough, Dorsetshire.'"
"You are chaffing, I suppose," said George, who had laid down his paper, and was looking up eagerly.
"Not the least in the world; I never was more serious in my life."
"Do you mean to say that they are coming to town, then?"
"I do, indeed. I had a letter from my mother this morning; in it she says that she requires change; but by what I gather from the context, I have a strong notion that the corruption of good manners by evil communications has taken place. Which, being interpreted, means this: that since you and I were down there, and fanned the governor's reminiscences of London and his previous life into a flame, he has grown so unbearable, that my mother has been forced to knock under to him, and intends bringing him up, to let him have the slightest suspicion of a fling."
"Exactly," said George; "I daresay you are right."
"And there is another view of the question, in which I fancy I am right too. It has long struck me that my mother's reason for keeping Annette in such strict seclusion, carrying her away to that ghastly place down there, and never letting anyone see her, was that she might be kept from all temptation in the shape of other young men, and grow up solely and entirely for me, my behoof and purposes. It seems to me tolerably plain now, that since our visit down there my mother sees that this notable plan is knocked on the head; as there is no chance of my marrying my cousin, the necessity for keeping her in seclusion no longer exists; and therefore she is to be brought to London, and allowed, to a certain extent, to mix in society; and I think I know someone, old man," continued Paul, looking with a kindly smile towards his friend, "who will not be displeased at that result, however it may have been brought about."
He was surprised to see George Wainwright turn suddenly pale, and to mark the tremulous tones of voice, as he said:
"You are a good fellow, Paul, and my own dear friend, to whom I can talk with all perfect frankness and honesty. I have never mentioned this matter to you before, never offered you my confidence on the subject, although I guessed from your manner once or twice, while down at The Tower, that you had some idea of my attachment to your cousin. I am sure I need not tell you, who know me so well, that, so long as there was the remotest chance of any alliance between you and her, even though it had been what, in the jargon of the world, is called a marriage of convenience, and not one in which on either side affection is supposed to have a part, I should never have dreamed of interposing any obstacle, or of even allowing myself to entertain any strong feeling towards her. I say that boldly now, for I think at that time I could have exercised sufficient self-restraint, had there been occasion for it, though now, God knows, my affection for her is quite beyond my control."
He paused for a moment, and Paul took advantage of the opportunity to rise from his seat, and walking round the desk, to lay his hand affectionately on his friend's broad shoulders.
"Of course, I know that, old man; of course, I know that you are the soul of honour and truth, and that you would have eaten your heart quietly, and never said a word. But there is no occasion for all that now, thank Heaven! I am in a nice mess with my business; but there's no reason why you shouldn't be happy."
"My dear Paul, any future for me and Annette together is impossible."
"What utter rubbish! I am perfectly confident of my own power of squaring my mother, and bringing her to see the thing in a proper light, now that she knows that there is no chance with me; and the governor's sure to follow as a matter of course; or supposing they remained obstinate, and refuse to give their consent, Annette loses her fortune, that's all. You've got quite enough to keep her in amply sufficient style; and for the matter of that, some time or other the money must come to me, and you and she should have as much of it as you liked--all of it, if you wanted it. Money's no good to me, poor miserable beggar that I am."
"It is not a question of money, Paul, or of Mrs. Derinzy's consent; there's something very far worse behind--something which I discovered when we were down at Beachborough together, and which I have hitherto kept back from you, partly because the revelation of it could do no good, and partly because I had a certain delicacy in telling you of what must, I fear, deprive certain persons of a portion of the estimation in which they have hitherto held me."
"Go on," said Paul quickly; "I haven't the least idea of what you mean."
"There was another reason," said George, "for keeping your cousin secluded in the country besides that which you have named. I had some faint glimmering of it when I first arrived at The Tower, and I heard of your mother's illness and my father's periodical visits. Before I left, I took means to verify my suspicions; and since I returned to town, I have had an opportunity of confirming them. Beyond question or doubt, your cousin Annette is the victim of a mental disorder. Paul, she is--that I, above all men, should have to tell you!--she is mad!"
"Good God!" cried Paul Derinzy, starting to his feet, "you are mad yourself to talk so!--Whose authority have you for this statement?"
"The best of all," said George Wainwright, sadly. "The authority of the physician in attendance upon her--the authority is my own father. This comes to supplement my own experience and my own observation. There is no doubt about it, Paul; would to God there was!"
"And my mother--she must have known all this--she could not possibly have been ignorant of it!" cried Paul.
George Wainwright was silent.
"And she would have let me marry Annette without any revelation of the mystery, for the sake of that wretched money; she would have embittered my future, and rendered the rest of my life hopeless and miserable. What a shameful conspiracy! What a base and wicked plot!"
"Hush, Paul!" said George Wainwright, laying his hand on his arm; "recollect of whom you are speaking."
"It is that that makes it all the worse," cried Paul. "To think that she, my mother, should have been so besotted by the hope of greed as to shut her eyes to all the misery which she was heaping up in store for me. It is too horrible to think of. What a narrow chance I had! What a providential escape!"
"Yes," said George, in a low voice, "you have escaped."
There was something in his friend's tone which touched Paul's heart at once.
"What a selfish brute I am," he cried, "to have been thinking of myself and to have forgotten you! How much worse it is for you than for me! My dear George, I never cared for Annette, and set my affections elsewhere; so that beyond the pity which I naturally feel for her, and the shock which I have experienced in learning that my mother could have been so short-sighted and so culpable, there is nothing to touch me in the matter. But you--you loved her for herself; you won her; for I never saw her take to or be interested in anyone so much before; and now you have to give her up."
George's face was buried in his hands. He groaned heavily, but he said nothing.
"Is there no hope?" asked Paul; "no hope of any cure? Is she irrecoverably insane?"
"My father seems to say so," said George, looking up. "I had a long interview with him the other day; told him the whole story, and confided to him all my feelings. He was kindness itself; but he gave me no hope."
"But, good heavens, it seems so wonderful! Here one sees her walking about, and talking in an ordinary manner, and yet you tell me that she is mad!"
"We only have seen her at her best times, my dear Paul. No one has seen her at her worst, except perhaps my father and Mrs. Stothard. These intermittent fits are, they tell me, a very bad sign. The chance were better, if the illness were more constant and protracted."
"It is too horrible!" cried Paul again. "George, what will you do?"
"Bear it, my boy," said his friend; "bear it as I have done things before now, and get on as best I can. I thought of going away, to endeavour in change by the excitement of travel to get rid of the thoughts which are now constantly occupying my mind, and I hope to return in a healthier state. But what you have just told me has altered my plan. The notion of seeing her once again, and speedily, has taken possession of me, and I confess I am not strong enough to fight against it. When do they come up to town?"
"At once, I believe. My mother says the governor's temper is unbearable, and that her only hope of any peace and comfort lies in bringing him to London. You will remain to see them?"
"Yes. As I said before, I cannot resist the temptation."
"Perhaps there may be hope even yet," said Paul. "Every one noticed how much better she was in health and spirits when in your society."
"I fear that improvement will not be permanent," said George, shaking his head sadly. "There was but one chance, and we seem to have lost even that."
"What was it?" asked Paul.
"Well, there was a German doctor named Hildebrand, who lived at Dorrendorf, who achieved a wonderful reputation for his treatment in cases of mania. Even my father--who had had long disputations and polemical controversies with him, carried on in the medical journals of Berlin and London--allowed that he had performed some wonderful cures, although the means by which the end was arrived at were, he professed to consider, unprofessional and undignified."
"Well, why don't we get this old fellow to come over and see Annette at once? Dr. Wainwright wouldn't stand upon ceremony now that he knows the real state of the case; and money's no object, you know, George; we could stand any amount among us, if we could only get poor Annette put right."
"You may be sure I have thought of that," said George. "I spoke to my father about it, and know he would be delighted to aid in any way in getting old Hildebrand's advice, even though the method to be employed should be contrary to his ideas. But the old man has retired from practice for some time, and nothing can be heard of him. I have sent to some of my correspondents in Germany; but from the answers I have received, I am led to believe that he is dead."
"That is bad news, indeed," said Paul. "The intelligence about poor Annette has come upon me so suddenly, that I seem scarcely able to comprehend it."
"Your never having seen her under one of these attacks, and having only a recollection of her as being always bright and cheerful, would tend to prevent the realisation," said George. "I too always strive to think of her under her most cheerful aspect. God knows I would not willingly see her under any other."
"It is a deuced bad look-out, there's no denying," said Paul; then added gloomily, "everything seems to be going to the bad just now."
"I have been so wrapped-up in my own troubles that I have forgotten yours, Paul," said George. "Tell me, how are matters getting on between you and your young friend? Not very brilliantly, I fear, by your tone."
"Brilliantly! No, anything but that. Infernal, I should say," said Paul. "I can't make her out; she seems perfectly changed since my absence from London. I am sure something must have happened; but I don't know what it is."
"You recollect my hint to you at Beachborough about Theseus and Ariadne? You burst out into a rage then; what do you think now?"
"I don't know what to think," said Paul, "though it looks something like it, I am bound to confess."
"Then why don't you be a man, and break off the whole business at once?"
"Now, I like that," said Paul; "I really like that suggestion from a man who has been talking as you have been talking to me. Do you think you could?"
"No, I am sure I could not," said George. "It is the old story: giving advice is the easiest thing in the world; following it the most difficult. I----"
"Hullo! here's Billy."
It was indeed Mr. Dunlop, who entered the room at the moment, and stood in the doorway regarding the two friends, who were leaning over the desk together, with a comical aspect.
"A very pretty picture indeed," said Mr. Dunlop. "'The Misers,' by Rembrandt, I think, or some other elderly parties of an obscure age. Whence this thusness? Do I intrude? If so, I am perfectly ready to withdraw. No one can ever say that W.D. forced himself into his office at times when his presence was not required there."
"Come in, and don't be an idiot, Billy," said Paul. "George and I were just talking over some private matters; but we have finished now."
"Private matters!" said Mr. Dunlop. "And by the look of you they must have been what the dramatist calls of 'serious import.' Confide in me. Come, rest on this bosom, my own stricken Deer-inzy. William is ready to give you advice, assistance, anything, indeed--except money. Of that latter article he is generally scarce; and Mr. Michael O'Dwyer has recently borrowed of him the attenuated remains of his quarterly stipend."
"No, Billy; thanks all the same; I don't think you can be of much use to either of us just now," said George, with a smile. "If you really are serious in what you said just now about money, you can have what you want from me."
"Thanks, generous stranger," said Billy. "You are like the rich uncle, who, from his purse containing notes to exactly double the amount--a favourite character in dramatic fiction, but one whom I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting in private life. No, I shall get on very well until the Chancellor of the Exchequer shells out."
And then Mr. Courtney came in, followed shortly by one or two other men, and the conversation dropped.
Paul Derinzy had rightly divined the reason of his mother's determination to come to London for a time. The Captain's long-conceived disgust at the dulness of Beachborough had wrought him into such a state of insubordination, that even his wife's authority was no longer sufficient for his control. Mrs. Derinzy saw plainly that some immediate steps must be taken; the Captain must go to London to see his old friends and his old haunts, and to enjoy himself once more after his former fashion. It would be unadvisable to let him go alone; and as Mrs. Derinzy had the good sense to see that her favourite project regarding the marriage of Paul and Annette was finally knocked on the head, there was no longer so much reason for keeping the girl in the seclusion of the country; and the head of the family therefore determined that they should all proceed to London together.
Principally for George's sake, for he had not much care of his own in the matter, Paul made no opposition to the proposed arrangement. He had perfectly made up his mind that the presence of his family in town should make no alteration in his own manner of life; he would not be bound to them in any way, and would consider himself just as free as he was previously to their arrival. George would have an opportunity of seeing Annette, which would be good gained for him, poor old fellow; and as for himself, he seemed to care little about what became of him; his every thought was centred and bound up in Daisy. If she treated him well, he should be thoroughly happy; if she threw him over, as indeed it looked somewhat likely she would, well, he should go to the bad at once, and there would be an end of it.
In due course of time the family arrived at the furnished house which had been taken for them in Queen Anne Street, and Paul and George went together to call there. The Captain was not at home; he had already begun to taste the sweets of liberty; had gone to the club, of which he still remained a supernumerary member; had already accepted several dinner engagements; was proposing to himself pleasure partiesgaloreBut they found Mrs. Derinzy, and after a short interview with her, Annette entered the room. She seemed already to have benefited by the change. Both George and Paul thought her looking unusually pretty and cheerful, and the blush which mounted to her cheeks when she saw and recognised the former, was as gratifying to him who had caused it, as it was astonishing to Mrs. Derinzy. Before they took their leave, the young men had arranged to dine there two days hence, when Mrs. Derinzy said the Captain should be present, and she would allow him to bring some of his old friends to meet them.
George, however, was not destined to be one of the guests at that dinner. When Paul arrived at the office the next morning, he found a note from his friend, couched in these terms:
"DEAR P.,--Rather an odd thing occurred last night. Some men were down here at my den, and among them Wraxall, who has just returned from a long tour on the Continent. He brought some sketch-books, and in glancing over them I was much struck with the extraordinary head of an old man. On my pointing it out to Wraxall, he told me it was drawn from life, and was indeed a portrait of an old German named Hildebrand. He had been celebrated as a 'mad doctor' in his day, and he was now resident at Mayence. Wraxall had seen him only ten days ago. Recollecting our last conversation when Hildebrand's name was mentioned, you will not be surprised to hear that I leave by this morning's tidal train for Brussels and the Rhine.
"Make my excuses to the Chief, and tell him I am taking the remainder of my leave. You shall hear, of course, as soon as I have anything to say. God bless you, my dear boy. I cannot help feeling that there is yet a gleam of hope.
"Yours ever,
"G.W."
"A gleam of hope," said Paul, as he finished the perusal of this note. "I hope so, indeed, my dear old man; but it is but a gleam, after all."