Paul Derinzy had indeed little reason to be satisfied with the treatment which he was experiencing at Daisy's hands; for though there had been nothing approaching to a final rupture between them, the new views of life which had opened upon her since her acquaintance with Colonel Orpington had afforded her a vast amount of matter for reflection. Of course the idea of the position which the Colonel had offered to her was by no means new to the girl's mind. Unhappily, too, the existence of such a position is unknown to a very small minority of innocents; and according to the present constitution of society, such a status is, it is to be feared, regarded by young women in Daisy's walk of life as one rather to be envied than shunned. But up to this time--perhaps partly owing to the severe training which she had received, which had had the effect of making her regard propriety as a sound commercial investment rather than as a duty to her conscience, partly to a real affection which she felt for Paul--she had resolutely refused to entertain any such ideas.
What had changed her? Not any diminution in the affection between her and her lover--not on his part, at least; for no man who did not worship her with all the depth of passion possible in his nature could have suffered so acutely as he did. Had she ceased to love him? No, she thought not; she could scarcely tell--the position was so unsatisfactory; that was all she could say to herself in thinking the matter over. She had not the least doubt that Paul would willingly make her such an offer as that which she had received from the Colonel; but then their circumstances were so different. Though Paul was undoubtedly a gentleman well connected, he was decidedly not rich, she knew that, or he would never have been content to remain in this office which he talked about; and to be rich, free from care, to have command of money and servants and dresses and carriages, that was what her mind was bent on just now. Then Paul would marry her too if she were to press it, she knew that; but what would be the benefit by their marriage? He would gain no more money; she would gain merely the name of a position. She would not be received into his society; and he, finding she was ignored, would either break with his own people and cleave to her, when he would be sulky and bored, always regarding her as the bar to his assumption of his proper status in society; or would give her up, and lead his life among his friends, merely treating her as his housekeeper, and his home as a place to return to when there was no other house to visit.
It would be dull and dreary either way with Paul, the latter condition worse than the former, for then she would be tied, and the bonds would be more difficult to break. And yet she could not bring herself to an open rupture with her lover. He was so kind, so attentive, so delicate, and above all, so passionately devoted to her. It must come, she thought; it would come some time or other, but not just yet. The evil day should be delayed as long as possible. And she had given no answer to Colonel Orpington. She did not mind about that; he was a man of the world, and would not expect one immediately. He would ascribe her delay either to modesty or calculation; under the sway of which of the two he might imagine her to be deliberating was quite indifferent to her.
To only one out of the three men who proposed to pay her their addresses had she conveyed her decision: that one was John Merton. There would be no more trouble with him, she thought. He could not misunderstand her words, and, above all, her manner, during that conversation in the street on her way to the chambers in the Temple. She knew he had not misunderstood it by the abrupt way in which he had taken his departure. Daisy felt a mild kind of pain at having hurt John Merton's feelings, as the details of that interview recurred to her. But, after all, it was better at an end. It was perfectly impossible that she could have led the life which he offered her. In company with him it would have been very respectable and very dull: in her then state of mind, Daisy considered that respectability and dulness generally went together. There would have been a bare sufficiency to live upon at first, and they would have had to have been supported by the hope of thriving on the inevitable progress of honesty, industry, and that kind of twaddle, which she had heard enunciated from pulpits, and seen set forth in the pages of cheap popular periodicals, in which, contrary to her experience of the world, the virtuous people got on wonderfully, besides being preternaturally clean in the woodcuts, while those who drank beer, and abstained from Sunday-afternoon service, were necessarily dirty and poverty-stricken.
It was not in her lodgings in South Molton Street that Daisy sat cogitating over these eventful circumstances, and deliberating as to her future. Madame Clarisse had gone away on business to Paris, and before she left she had requested her assistant to instal herself in the private rooms of the establishment in George Street.
"You will be better there, Fanfan, my child, than in themansardewhere you have been so long. There are certain people--you know who I mean; I need not mention their names--who, I think, would particularly wish it, and it is as well for us to oblige them, particularly when at the same time we do a good thing for ourselves; besides, it is good for the business that I should leave you in charge of it. I will not disguise from you, my dear child, that I do not think of continuing in commerce very much longer. I have had enough of it myself; and though I thought there might be a chance of my giving it up to someone who would comprehend the delicate nuances of the details with which I have surrounded it, and the care and trouble which I have expended upon it, it shall not go to Augustine, or to any of those others who have copied me and my ways over here in thispays barbare. I shall find someone in Paris who would like to come andexploiterher youth and her talent, and also, my faith! her money, amongst thejeunes meessand the robust dames of England; and as for myself, when that is done, Fanfan, I shall be free, and thenvogue la galère. Perhaps in those days to come, Fanfan, you will not mind seeing an old friend, who will not be so old but she will understand the life, and how to lead it." And here Madame Clarisse kissed her fingers and waved them in the air with an eminently-suggestive French gesture. "And you will give her a seat in your carriage, and tell her of all the conquests you are making."
And then Madame Clarisse gave Daisy's ear a little pinch, and laughed shrilly, and betook herself to the cold fowl and half bottle of very excellent Bordeaux which constituted her luncheon.
So Madame Clarisse went to Paris, and Daisy was installed in her place. And it was in the cosy little low-ceilinged room that she was seated, gazing at, but certainly not seeing, the furniture in red velvet, the engravings, the nicknacks, and the statuettes by Danton, that all these reflections on the past, and speculations upon the future, passed through her mind.
She had had a busy day, and was feeling rather fatigued, and thought she might refresh herself with a nap before she went through the business accounts and wrote to Madame a statement of what had occurred, as was her regular nightly practice, when a knock came to the door, and the shiny-faced page, entering quickly, announced that a gentleman was below and wished to see her.
"He has grown impatient," Daisy thought, "and is anxious for his answer. I scarcely expected that of him. However, I suppose it is rather a compliment than otherwise. He must have heard from Madame that I was here. You can show the gentleman up, James."
When the page had gone, Daisy ran into the back room and passed a brush over her hair, and just gave her face one touch with the powder puff which Madame Clarisse had left behind on her toilet-table, and returned into the sitting-room to confront, not Colonel Orpington, as she had expected, but John Merton.
Daisy started, and did not attempt to conceal her displeasure.
"I have ventured once again to call upon you, Miss Stafford," said John; "but I had better commence by saying that this time I have not come on my own business."
"That at all events is good hearing, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, coldly.
"Exactly," said John. "I expected you to speak of it in that way. You may depend upon it you will never be further troubled, so far as I am concerned."
"To what, then, do I owe this----"
"Intrusion, you were going to say," interrupted he. "It is an intrusion, I suppose, so far as it is unasked and decidedly unwelcome."
"You speak bluntly, Mr. Merton."
"I speak strongly because I feel strongly, Miss Stafford."
"Perhaps you will be good enough to speak intelligibly at the same time," said Daisy. "You have enlarged upon what you have been pleased to call your unwelcome intrusion; but you have not explained the reason of it."
"You are right," said John. "I will proceed to do so at once. I am afraid I shall be a little lengthy, but that is unavoidable."
Daisy bowed, and tapped her foot impatiently. She felt that there was something horribly irritating in the calmness of this man's manner.
"I must begin at the beginning," said John, "and in doing so I must allude to matters which I have just promised should not again be mentioned by me. However, it is a necessity, and I will touch upon them as lightly as possible. You know that, ever since I first made your acquaintance through my sister, I took the greatest interest in you, and ended by being hopelessly in love with you."
Daisy bowed very coldly.
"I daresay it was very ridiculous, and I know you consider it highly presumptuous, though I am bound to confess I do not see any reason why I should have not felt an honest love for you, and should not have mentioned it to you. We are both members of the same class in society; and if it suited them in other ways, there was no reason why the milliner's first hand and the draper's assistant should not have been married."
He said these last words quietly; but there was a certain amount of bitterness in his tone, and Daisy flushed angrily as she heard them. She was about to speak, but refrained, and merely motioned him to proceed.
"However, that could not be," said John Merton in continuance. "The right of acceptance or rejection remained entirely with you, and you decided upon the latter."
He paused for a moment, and then said in a lower tone:
"If I had not been the besotted fool that I am, I should have accepted my dismissal as it was given--coolly, definitely, and without the slightest remorse; but, unfortunately, I am weak enough not to be able to take things in this way. I had too much at stake--my future happiness was too deeply involved--to permit of my bowing to my fate, and endeavouring to forget what had been the one sole excitement of many months in some new study or pursuit."
He paused again, as though expecting her to speak. But she was silent, and he continued:
"My sister, who was the cause of our first introduction, has been since the medium through which I have ascertained all my information about you. She was very chatty at first, and never was tired of talking to me of what you did and said, and where you went, and enlarging on the dulness of the life which you pursued. She little thought, I imagine, what intense interest I took in her voluble prattle. She thought me too much immersed in my own affairs to take any real heed of what she was saying, and imagined that I merely induced her to go on in order to distract my mind from graver subjects, and to fill up what would have been the tedium of my enforced leisure. It was not until the occasion of the little tea-party at that young lady's---- I see you smile; but from me the appellation is correct."
"I beg your pardon, I did not smile, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, almost savagely; "I am listening to you at your request. I am in no smiling humour; and I must beg you to make this interview as brief as possible."
"It was on the occasion of the tea-party at Miss Manby's then," continued John Merton, "that I think Bella saw for the first time that all my queries about you had been put with deliberate intention, and had a definite aim. Previously to that she had once or twice joked me in her light way about my admiration of you, but nothing more; but you may recollect--I do perfectly--that on that night she took delight in teasing me about that portrait which Mr. Kammerer had taken of you, and about the man--I beg your pardon, the gentleman--who came to the place and insisted upon buying it."
John stopped here, and looked at her so pointedly that Daisy could not restrain the rising blush in her cheek. She said quietly:
"I do recollect it perfectly."
"Of course you do; no woman ever forgets any occasion on which she sees a man piqued or jealous at her preference of another."
"There was no question of preference in the matter," said Daisy. "I knew nothing about the gentleman who wished to purchase the portrait; I had only seen him once; and there can be no great crime, even in the category of sins proscribed by the severe doctrine which I presume you hold, and which, at all events, you teach, in a girl's finding pleasure at admiration bestowed upon her."
"I must get back to my facts," said John Merton, quietly. "I suppose I showed that I was annoyed that night, and from my annoyance Bella judged that I was in earnest about you. We don't meet very often, and we have very little in common, for she is younger than I am, and does not take quite the same view of the world that I do--she has not seen so much of it, poor girl; and for a long time you were not mentioned between us. During all the time that I was in suspense, before I had made up my mind to express my feelings to you, and ask you to be my wife, and after that in the short period before I met you walking in the street, we seemed mutually to avoid any mention of your name. It seemed to me too sacred to be bandied about with such jests and light talk as Bella would probably have used concerning it; and she seemed to understand my feeling and to humour it. At all events, during that time nothing was said about you; but since then--since I heard from your own lips what was equivalent to my dismissal--we have frequently reverted to the theme. You will understand, please, that in mentioning what I am going to tell you, I am by no means endeavouring to harrow your feelings, or to work upon your compassion; it simply comes in as part of what I have to say; and I must say it."
John might have spared himself this digression, for Daisy was in no melting mood, and sat listening, half-sternly contemptuous, half-savagely irate. All the notice she took of these remarks was to give a very slight bow.
"I was completely upset by your decision," John continued; "and though I ought never to have expected anything else, that came so suddenly upon me, the pleasing path in dreamland was so abruptly ended, the visions which I had indulged were so ruthlessly chased away----"
Here Daisy tapped her foot very impatiently. John started, and said, "I beg your pardon," so comically, that Daisy could scarcely refrain from smiling.
"I mean, it was all over so quickly that I took it to heart like a fool, and became moping and low. I sent for Bella then, and got her to come and see me constantly in the evening, when our work for the day was over; and I began again to talk to her about you, not telling her anything about what had happened, but talking just as I used in the old days, only a little more passionately perhaps; for my usual quiet nature was aroused at the thought of the way in which you had treated me, and at the idea of what might have been--what might be yet, I suppose I thought to myself; for one night I told Bella all about my coming to you in South Molton Street, the declaration that I made, and the way in which you received it. Then I told her of that horrible interview, when we met in the street, and when you treated me as though I had been a servant. She was naturally angry about this, and talked the usual stuff which people do in such cases, advising me not to think of you any more; that you could not appreciate my worth; that there were plenty of other women who--you know the style of condolence on such occasions. I seemed to agree with her; and I suppose I actually did so for some little time; but then the what-might-be feeling took possession of me, and I began idiotically to buoy myself up with a hope that you might have spoken hurriedly and without thought, that I might have been proud and hasty; and, in fact, that there might yet be a chance of future happiness for me. Bella must have discovered this almost as soon as I felt it; for she seemed to discourage my questions about you, and my evident inclination to forget what had passed, and to endeavour to renew my acquaintance with you. She was very quiet and kind at first--she was kind throughout, I suppose I ought to say; but when she found that my feverish longing to see you again was coming to a height, that I was bent upon imploring you to reconsider your determination, she spoke openly to me, and told me what I would sooner have died than have heard."
Daisy looked up quickly and angrily at him.
"And what," she said scornfully, "may this wonderful communication have been?"
"I suppose you do not know Bella's share in all that has taken place, or you would not ask the question," said John.
"I am not aware that Bella Merton has any share in anything that concerns me," said Daisy. "It is useless speaking any further in riddles. You promised you would speak out; hitherto you have done so, and you must continue to the end."
"I will," said John Merton; "I came to do it, and I will carry it through at whatever pain it may be for me to speak, for you to hear. My sister Bella, then, has informed me that a man--one of those whom you call gentlemen, but from whom I withhold the name--has ventured to make dishonourable proposals to you; in plain terms, to ask you to live with him as his mistress."
"Mr. Merton!" cried Daisy, in a wild access of rage, "how dare----"
"Pardon me," said John, raising his hand; "we decided, if you recollect, that we should go through this matter to the end. You will not deny the accusation, I know, for you are too proud to stoop to any such mean subterfuge; and even if you did, I could not believe you, for I have the confession of one whom this scoundrel has made an accomplice. You see it is not entirely on your account that I have to bring this man to book, Miss Stafford," said John, who had turned very white, and whose hands were clenching nervously. "He has debased my sister into becoming a participator of his wretched work, a tool to help him to his miserable end. All the time that Bella was intimate with you, she was, unknown to you, fetching and carrying between you and this man, feeding your vanity with accounts of his admiration, giving him information as to your movements, playing the wretched part of half go-between, half spy."
"You know that I knew nothing of this!" Daisy broke out.
"Perfectly," said John Merton; "but that only makes it the worse for her. However, it is not of her I came to speak, but of you."
"I think you may spare yourself the trouble," said Daisy, looking steadily at him; "you have no position giving you the slightest claim to interfere with me or my actions, and in forming conjectures, in coming to conclusions about my future movements, you have already taken a most unwarrantable liberty. I desire that you say no more, and leave me at once."
"Ah, for God's sake, no!" cried John Merton, in a tone so shrill and startling that it went to Daisy's heart--"Ah, for God's sake, no! Give up this outside crust of stoicism and conventionality, and let me plead to the woman that you really are. Have you for an instant thought of what you are doing? I know that you have temporised without giving any answer. Bella told me that; but have you thought how even this delay may compromise you? Are you, so lovely as you are, so bright and clever and graceful, going to sacrifice your whole life, to place all those charms at the mercy of a man who will use them while he chooses, and fling them away when he is tired? I don't want to preach; I only want to put matters plainly before you. Suppose you consent to this infernal proposal which has been made to you. The man is old; he has not even the excuse of a mad passion, which is deaf to the calls of conscience, or even to the common feelings of humanity. He has not that excuse; he is old, and jaded, and fickle; the life which he is leading requires constantly new excitement; and after a little time your novelty will have passed away, and you will be thrown aside to shift for yourself. Could your high spirit brook that? Could you bear to see yourself pointed at as deserted, or, worse than all, find yourself compelled to become subject to some venal bargain--Oh God, it is too horrible to think of!"
"I will not bear this from anyone; certainly not from you. What right have you to interfere?"
"What right have I to interfere! The right of having loved you with all my whole soul and strength; the right of one whose future has been bittered by your refusal to share it with him. I don't pine," he cried, "about a broken heart; I can bear to contemplate the lonely life which I shall have to lead; I could bear"--and the words here came very slowly through his set teeth--"to see you happily married to a man who appreciated and loved you, as I should have delighted in doing; but I will not stand patiently by to see the woman I have loved held up to the world's scorn, or deliberately dragged down to the depths of infamy."
He spoke so strongly and so earnestly, his rude eloquence came evidently from the depths of his troubled heart, that even Daisy's stubborn pride seemed a little touched.
"I know you mean this kindly towards me, Mr. Merton," she said, in a low voice; "and I fear I have shown myself scarcely sufficiently grateful, or even civil, to you; but, believe me, I appreciate your motives, and I thank you for coming here. Now you must go."
"You will not send me away without assurance that this cruel thing shall not be; that you will say No to this horrible proposal, and never give it another moment's thought. Ah, do not think I am pleading for myself; do not think I am cherishing any vain hope that, this once put aside, I may come forward again and urge my suit. It is not so, I swear. I have accepted my fate, and shall--well, shall struggle on somehow, I daresay. It is for you, and you alone, that I am interested. Let me go away with the assurance that you are saved. Ah, Fanny, it is not much I ask you. Let me go away with that."
"It would be easy for me to give you that assurance, and then to do as I pleased," said Daisy; "but you have shown yourself so true a friend that I will not deceive you."
"And you will give me the assurance?"
"No; I did not, I cannot, say that."
"Then I will get it," cried John, "from Colonel Orpington."
Daisy started. It was the first time the name had been mentioned during the interview.
"You see I know him, and know where to find him. I will make him promise me to give up this pursuit."
The tone in which he spoke had worked a wonderful and immediate change in Daisy's feelings.
"Make him!" she cried. "You will not find the gentleman of whom you speak so easily forced to compliance with your desires."
"I did not mean to force him," said John; "I----"
"If it were not for the fear of compromising my name," said Daisy, now thoroughly roused, her eyes flashing, and her lip trembling, "he would hand you over to the police. We have had enough of this folly," she said, stamping her foot; "and as it is impossible to get you to go away, I must retire and leave you."
As she spoke she rose from her seat, and giving him a very slight bow, she passed into the bedroom, the door of which she closed behind her.
John Merton waited for a moment, then turned on his heel, and silently left the house.
George Wainwright found that early winter had already descended upon Germany. When he arrived at Cologne the last tourist had long since passed through that pleasant old city. The large hotels were shut up; thevalets de placeand cathedral touters had melted away, only to reappear with the advent of summer; all the vendors of the Eau had shut up their shops, and disappeared to more lively places, to spend the money which they had acquired during the season; and even in the second and third rate hotels the largesalonswere closed, and but the smaller apartments were kept open for the reception of such commercial gentlemen as the exigences of business kept upon the road.
This did not matter much to George Wainwright, who was as careless of luxuries as most men, and who, as an old traveller, had comfortable head-quarters on which he could depend in most leading cities in Europe. It was at the Brusseler Hof that George put up when he was in Cologne, and, no matter what the season, he was sure to find the cosy little second-rate inn full of business, and to experience a hearty welcome from stout old Schuhmacher the landlord.
It was not so long since his last visit but that he was remembered; and on his arrival, was placed close up at his old host's right hand at the littletable d'hôte, consisting then solely of the host's family and a few neighbouring burghers, who habitually dined there all the year round. There was a good deal of quiet solemn chaff at the idea of an Englishman daring to put in an appearance on the Rhine border between the months of October and May, and a certain amount of ponderous solicitude expressed in many polysyllabic words was exhibited as to the reason of his journey. But George took care to keep this to himself, passing it off in the best way he could, and merely informing his querists that he was going as far as Mainz.
Then he heard that ice had fallen in the river, that the steam-boat traffic was quite suspended, and that he would have to travel in theeilwagen, which he learned to his cost on the morrow was a humorous name for a wretched conveyance something like adiligence, without anintérieuror abanquette, which crawled along at the rate of between five and six miles an hour, and the company in which was anything but desirable.
George slept at Coblenz that night, and the next day made his way to Mainz, where he at once proceeded to an old inn situate in one of the back streets of the town, and bearing the sign Zum Karpfen, which was the head-quarters of the artistic body who nightly held high jinks in thekneipethere.
By numerous members of this brotherhood--young men fantastically dressed, with long hair and quaintly-cut beards, and pipes of every kind and shape pendent from their mouths--George was received with very great enthusiasm. Some of them had been his fellow-students at the University; all of them had heard of him and his learning, and his love for German songs and traditions and student-life. And high revelry was held that night in honour of his arrival; andohmsof beer were voted by acclamation and speedily drunk; and speeches were made, and songs were sung, and George was kissed and embraced by full two-thirds of the company present.
The next morning he was up betimes, and paid an early visit at the Hofapotheke or Court-laboratory of the town, the manager of which would, as he was informed, be able to give him Dr. Hildebrand's address. The manager, who was a very little man, with large protruding eyes covered with great horn spectacles, and very large flap ears, and who looked so like an owl that George almost expected him to hop on to the counter, was very polite but extremely reticent.
"Oh yes; he had the pleasure of the Herr Doctor's acquaintance. Who was there in the great world to whom the berühmter Herr Doctor was not known? It was in Dorrendorf that this so justly celebrated man formerly resided had. Was it not true? But where did he reside now? Ah, that was something quite otherwise. Was the Mr. Englishman who spoke the German language with so excellent an accent--was he perhaps of the medical profession?"
"No; but his father. And perhaps the courteous manager of the Court laboratory might know the name of Wainwright."
"Vainrayte!" The courteous manager knew it perfectly. He had read the even so clever treatises on the subject of "Mania and Mental Diseases," which that so justly renowned physician had written. And the Mr. Englishman was the son of the Doctor von Vainrayte! There would be no difficulty then in letting him know the address of Dr. Hildebrand.
And after further interchange of bows and courtesies, George took his departure, bearing with him the old physician's address.
Dr. Hildebrand lived some distance from the town, in a little road fringed on either side by detached villas standing in their trim gardens, the road itself turning out of a noblealléeof chestnut-trees, which forms one of the principal outlets of the town. All the gardens were neatly kept, and all the houses seemed clean and trim and orderly; but George remarked that the Doctor's house and garden seemed the neatest of all. He was almost afraid to stand on the doorstep as he rang the bell, lest he should sully its whiteness; and, indeed, the old woman who opened the door immediately looked at the prints of his boots with great disfavour.
She answered his question of whether the Doctor were at home by another, asking him what was his business; and was evidently inclined to be disagreeable at first, but softened in her manner when George told her that he had come all the way from England in order to see her master.
She smiled at this, and condescended to admit him, not without a parting glance at the muddy footprints, and without enjoining him to rub his feet on the square scraper standing inside the hall which did duty for a mat. Then she ushered him into a small and meanly-furnished dining-room, which, like every other apartment in the house, smelt very strongly of tobacco, and there left him.
George could not help smiling to himself as he looked round the room, the furniture and appointments of which recalled to him such pleasant memories of his German student days. There on the little sideboard was the coarse whity-brown cloth, so different from English table-linen, rolled up and waiting for use. There was the battered red japanned bread-tray, containing the half-dozen whitebrodchens, the lump ofsauerbrod, and the thin slices ofschwarzbrod. There were the three large cruets, so constantly required for salad-mixing purposes, and the blunt black-handled knives and forks. On the wall was a print from Horace Vernet's ghastly illustration of Bürger's Lenore, showing the swift death-ride, the maiden lying in fainting terror across the horse's neck, borne in the arms of the corpse, whose upraised visor shows its hideous features.
There were also two or three portraits of eminent German physicians and surgeons. On the table lay folded copies of theCologne Gazetteand theAugsburg Zeitung; and each corner of the room was garnished with a spittoon.
George had just time to take observation of these things, when the door opened, and the old woman entering, begged him to follow her, as her master would see him.
Down a long passage and across a small garden, not trim or neat by any means--more of a yard, indeed--in which linen that had been washed was hanging out to dry, and so to the Doctor's study--a large room surrounded with bookcases crammed and overflowing. Books piled in the middle of the floor in miscellaneous heaps; Pelions on Ossas of books in the corners having overcharged themselves, and shot their contents all over the neighbouring space. A large eight-day clock in a heavy open case ticking solemnly on one side of the fireplace, the niche on the other side being occupied by a suspended skeleton. On the mantelpiece bottles of anatomical preparations, polished bones, and cases of instruments; in the middle of the room an enormous old-fashioned writing-table, littered with papers and books on which the dust had thickly accumulated. Seated at it, busily engaged in writing, and scarcely looking up as they entered the room, was Dr. Hildebrand, one of the greatest men of science of his day.
A tall man, standing over six feet in height, of strange aspect, rendered still more strange by the contrast between his soft silver-white air, brushed back from his forehead and hanging down over his coat-collar, and the sable hue of an enormous pair of bushy bristly eyebrows, which stuck out like pent-houses, and from under which his keen black eyes looked forth. His features were coarse and rugged, his nose large and thick, his mouth long and ill-shaped, his jaw square, and his chin enormous. He was dressed in a long gray, greasy dressing-gown, an old black waistcoat and black trousers, and had frayed worked slippers on his feet. He was smoking a long pipe, the painted porcelain bowl of which hung far below his knees; and from its depths, in the influence of the excitement as he wrote, he kept drawing up and emitting short thick puffs of smoke, in which he was enshrouded.
After a short space of time, during which George sat motionless, the old gentleman came to the end of the passage which he was writing; and, looking up for inspiration or what not, perceived his visitor.
He looked at him sharply from under his heavy brows, and then, in a harsh voice, and with but scant show of courtesy, said:
"Gefällig?" (What is your pleasure?)
George, speaking in German, began to inform the old gentleman that he had travelled a very long way for the purpose of seeing and consulting him. His fame had reached England, where----
"You are von England out?" interrupted the Doctor.
"I am."
"And yet you speak die Cherman speech so slippery!" said the old gentleman. "So to me is it mit the English, it is to me equal; but as I hef not the praxis had, if it is so bleasant to you, we will the English langvitch dalk."
"With the greatest pleasure," said George. "I was mentioning to you, Herr Doctor, that your great fame and renown had brought me from England for the purpose of consulting you on one of those cases which you have made your special study, and one in which I am particularly interested."
"Zo!" said the Doctor, emitting a long puff of smoke, "aber ist es ihnen nicht bekannt--I mean, is it not know to you dass I ze praxis have gave up? Dass I vill no more the curatives inspect, but vill me zum studiren leave?"
"I have heard so, Herr Doctor; but I thought that perhaps under peculiar circumstances you might make an exception."
"Und die peguliar circonstances is----?"
"I thought perhaps that when I told you of the case, a young girl"
"Ah, bah!" interrupted the old gentleman, with a short and angry puff. "It is nothing vorths; dass young kirls und dummerei! Dass geht mit mir nicht mehr. I am one old man now and" then turning suddenly, "she is your Schwester, vat?"
"No; at present she is nothing to me, though if she were well, I should hope to make her my wife."
"Your vaife! Ah, ha! you are verlobt, vat you call engachement, vat? And she is----?" touching his forehead. "Ach, du lieber Gott! dass ist aber schwer. Und so fine a young man! How do you call? Vat is your name, eh?"
"You have heard it before, I think," said George. "My name is Wainwright."
"Vainwraet!" screamed the old gentleman; "was von Vainwraet dass derTarkened Maind, derSeclusion, is it koot or bat?derNon Restraint in Lunacie, und so weiter? der Doctor Vainwraet, are you mit ihm verwandt, are you of him relatived?"
"I am Dr. Wainwright's son," said George.
"His sohn! was der sohn of Vainwraet, der berühmter Doctor Vainwraet, was von die Pedlams, und die Lukes und Hanvell Hash--Hatch, vot you call; is dass shaining licht, so hell and so klar, dass his sohn should komm to Chermany to consult.me, one such humble man, is to me honourable indeed."
George readily detected a very strong accent of scorn running through this speech, and the bow with which the old gentleman concluded it was one of mock humility. He scarcely knew how to reply; but after a moment's pause he said, "I thought, sir, you would know my father's name."
"His name is mir sehr wohl bekannt, ver veil bequaint with him," said the Doctor with a grin, "and mit his praxis nevertheless, notwithstanding, likewise," he added, nodding his head with great delight as he uttered each of the last three words. "Tell to me, your father has he seen your braut, dass mädchen, die young dame?"
"Yes, he has seen her several times."
"And what says he of her?"
George shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head despairingly. "He says he can do her no good--that her case is incurable."
"Which is two tifferent brobositions, of which I cannot tubidade about the fairst, though the second may not be founded on fact," said the Doctor. "No, my young chentleman, I am combassionate and sorrow for you, but I cannot preak my rule. I hef retaired myself to studiren, and will inspect no more curatives; and as to your father, der berühmter Vainwraet, it is not for him I preak my rule! He is an shamposter, see you, an shamposter!" The puffs from the pipe came very thick and very rapidly. "An shamposter, sir, mit his dreadises and his bamphlets, and his lecturings delivered before the Collegiums drum und herum! He laugh at my ice-theory in his vat you call Physikalische Zeitung,Lancer--Lancet!He make chokes at my institute in Dorrendorf, vat? He is a shamposter, dieser Vainwraet, and to the devil mit him and his sohn, and die ganze geschichte!"
The old gentleman waved his hand as he spoke, as if he were really consigning his visitor to the dread limbo which he had named, reseated himself at his desk, from which he had risen in his rage, and began writing and smoking furiously.
What was to be done? George made an attempt at renewing the conversation, but the Doctor only waved his arm impatiently, and cried "Fort!" in shrill accents.
So George Wainwright came away despondingly. His last chance of getting Annette restored to health had failed, and his outlook on life was very blank indeed.
It was deep mid-winter, and Colonel Orpington was at home at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. Miss Orpington was at home too, temporarily. She had just come up from one of the charming country-houses where she and her chaperone had been spending Christmas, and in a week's time she was about to rush off to another charming country-house, where she would meet the same people, and they would all do the same things, and thoroughly enjoy themselves. This forthcoming one is the last visit she will pay before her marriage. Early in the ensuing spring the Yorkshire baronet with money is to claim Miss Orpington for his own; meantime the interval between the two visits is spent by the young lady in shopping and visiting during the day, and making her father take her to the theatre at night.
Colonel Orpington accepts the position with his usual complacency. He has lived long enough in the world to allow very few things indeed to ruffle him. Even the fact of his not having had any answer from Fanny Stafford does not annoy him.
"A younger man," he says to himself, "would fret and fume, and get in a deuce of a stew. What would be the good of that? It would not make the answer come any quicker, and it would not have any effect upon the girl's decision when she had made up her mind to send it. I am not at all sure that this delay is not rather good than otherwise. My heart does not beat quite so quickly as it did five-and-twenty years since, nor does the blood tingle in my veins to such an extent as at that period, and I can afford to wait. And even if the young lady should make up her mind to decline my proposition, I should certainly not commit suicide, though I confess I hope she may accept it for more reasons than one.
"I expect that this house will be deuced dull after Emily marries. I should have to get a clergyman's widow, or somebody of that kind, to come and be housekeeper. That would be horribly dull, and I don't see why I should have all the expense of keeping this place up. All the people I want to entertain I could have at the club; and if it is necessary for me to give a couple of ladies' dinners during the season--well, they can be done at Greenwich or Richmond, by Hart or Ellis, at less expense and without any trouble. I think I should have chambers in Piccadilly, or somewhere thereabouts; and then that other little arrangement would suit me admirably, provided the Paradise which I propose to establish was situated within an easy drive of town.
"I shall have to lay out a new line of life for myself, I think. I confess I don't see my way to what Emily said the other night about my being constantly with them. She is a very nice girl, and Hawker's a good fellow in his way; but his place is a deuced long way off, and I am getting a little too old to like to be 'braced', as they call it, by that infernally keen air that sweeps over the Yorkshire moors. Besides, they'll be having children, and that kind of thing; and it would be a confounded nuisance to have to be called 'Grandpapa!' Ridiculous position for a man of my appearance! So that, except when they are in town, and one can go to dinner, or to her box at the opera, or that kind of thing, I don't expect I shall see much of them. Grandpapa! by Jove, that would be positively awful!"
And the Colonel rises from his seat, and looks at himself in the glass, and poodles his hair, and strokes his moustache, and is eminently satisfied with his appearance.
It is in the breakfast-room that the Colonel makes these remarks to himself. Miss Orpington has not yet come down. She has announced by her maid that she has a headache, she supposes from the close atmosphere of the theatre the previous evening, and is taking her breakfast in bed. The Colonel has finished his meal, and is wondering what he will do with himself. He strolls to the window, and looks into the street, which is thick with slush. There has been a little snow early in the morning, and it has melted, as snow does nine times out of ten in London, and has been left to lie where it melted, as it always is in London, and the result is a universal pool of slush and mud, a couple of inches deep. The Colonel shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, and turns away. He had some notion of going for a ride, but he doesn't see the fun of being splashed up to his eyes, and of having to hold damp and slippery reins with aching fingers. So he thinks he will stroll down to the club and look through the papers, and have a chat with anybody who may be available.
At that moment Miss Orpington enters the room. She walks up to her parent, who is standing on the hearthrug, and turning her head, presents to him the lobe of her ear. The Colonel bestows an affectionate embrace on this portion of his daughter's anatomy, and inquires after her headache.
He is reassured at hearing it is better. Then Miss Orpington inquires, "Who is the person in the hall?"
"Person in the hall!" The Colonel has not the smallest idea.
"There is a person in the hall," Miss Orpington avers. "A tradesman-looking person--bootmaker, or something of that kind, she should think from his appearance."
Then the Colonel gives a little start, and remembers that something had been said to him about half an hour ago about somebody wishing to see him.
The bell is rung, and inquiries are made from the servant about the person in the hall.
A mysterious stranger, who declines to give his name, but is extremely anxious to see Colonel Orpington, and will take no refusal. Had been waiting there half an hour, and seemed inclined to wait on.
Miss Orpington says, "How very odd!" The Colonel raises his eyebrows, and ejaculates, "Deuced!" then tells the servant to show the mysterious person into the library; and after the lapse of a few minutes he himself proceeds thither.
On entering the room Colonel Orpington perceives the stranger to be a tall, good-looking young man belonging to the middle-classes, and with a curious expression on his face which reminds the Colonel of someone of his acquaintance whom he cannot immediately recollect. The man, who is standing, bows at the Colonel's entrance, but declines to take the seat to which he is motioned.
"You wish to speak to me, I believe?" said the Colonel, stiffly.
He had committed a stretch of courtesy by inviting a young man obviously in the commercial interest to take a seat, and was somewhat outraged at finding his civility not appreciated.
"You are Colonel Orpington?" said the visitor.
"I am. I understand you decline to give your name."
"For the present, yes. When you have heard my business, if you do not by that time guess who I am, I shall be happy to tell you."
"Deuced polite of you, I'm sure," said the Colonel with a grin. "Perhaps you'll tell me what your business is. Some account to be settled, I suppose? If so, I am not in the habit of discussing such matters. If the money is due, you can have it and go."
"There is an account to be settled," said the visitor; "but it is not of the nature that you suppose."
He spoke very quietly but very earnestly; so earnestly that the Colonel leaned forward in his seat and looked at him with an attention which he had hitherto not bestowed upon him.
"Is this a plant?" said the wily old warrior to himself. "My friend here looks very much of the outraged-brother order; but I have had nothing of that kind on hand for years." Then aloud, "What is your business, then?"
"I have come here, Colonel Orpington, to appeal to your feelings as a gentleman and a man of honour."
"Monstrous good of you to take the trouble, I'm sure," said the Colonel, with the old grin.
"Hear me out first, and then say what you please," said the visitor. "Depend upon it, I should not have come here on the chance of submitting myself to miscomprehension and indignity, if I had not some adequate motive."
Again the Colonel noticed the likeness to someone in this man's face, and again he failed to trace it to its original.
"There is no need to make a long story of what I have to say; it can be very shortly told. You will understand me at once, Colonel Orpington, when I tell you that my name is Merton, and that I am the brother of a young woman with whom you have been for some time past in communication."
"It is the outraged-brother business, after all," said the Colonel to himself. "This man has found his sister was in the habit of occasionally coming to chambers; perhaps has learned that I occasionally give her money; and he jumps at once to a wrong conclusion."
Then looked up and said, "Well, sir!"
"You have made my sister a tool for a most dishonourable purpose. You have caused her to aid you in a plot against one of her own sex, her friend, and situated much as she might have been herself."
"By Jove," muttered the Colonel beneath his breath, "I was wrong; he is on the other tack!"
"I do not presume to understand how you had the audacity----"
"Sir!" cried the Colonel.
"I repeat the word--the audacity to attempt to induce my sister to become a spy, and something worse than a spy! You must have had greater powers of perception than I gave you credit for to comprehend that you could offer her such a post, and that she would accept it. Of her part in the transaction I have nothing to say, nor indeed of yours so far as she is concerned."
"That being the case, Mr.---- Mr.--I beg your pardon--Merton, perhaps we had better bring this interview to an end," said the Colonel, rising to his feet. "I am not going to pick words with you as to the expression which you have chosen to apply to the commission which your sister executed for me. She executed and was paid for it, and there's an end of it."
"Not yet," said John Merton. "You don't imagine that I should come here, in the present day, when all these things are taken for granted, to endeavour to wring your conscience by proving to you that you tempted a young girl to do a dishonest, disloyal, and dishonourable act? You don't imagine I am quixotic enough to think that even if you listen to me patiently, what I said to you would have one grain of effect a moment after the door had closed upon me? You don't think I am a missionary from the lower classes come to prate to the upper of decency and honour?"
He spoke in a loud high key, his eyes were flashing, and his whole face was lit up with excitement.
"What my sister did for you is done and ended so far as she is concerned, and I will not give you the excuse for a smile by telling you that she is sorry for it now, and sees her conduct in a light in which she did not before perceive it. Youdosmile, and I know why: you think it is easy to profess repentance when the deed has been done and the reward paid. You paid to my sister at various times sums amounting to thirty pounds. In this envelope," laying one on the table, "are three ten-pound notes. So far, Colonel Orpington, we are quits."
The Colonel sat still, with his eyes intently fixed on his visitor. As he remained silent, John Merton proceeded:
"I wish the other matter could be as easily settled. But in this I meet you on even terms; in the other I come as a suppliant."
The Colonel's face became a little more hard, and he sat a little more erectly in his chair, as he heard these last words.
"Through my sister's aid, directly or indirectly, you made the acquaintance of Miss Stafford. Well," he continued, as he noticed a motion of protest on the Colonel's part, "you may not actually have made her acquaintance--that, I believe, commenced at the place where she was employed--but it was through my sister's aid that you knew of her, that you learned all about her, and that you found out she was likely to swallow the gilded bait by which even now you are endeavouring to secure her. When a man in your position pays attention to a girl in hers, it can be but with one meaning and intention. Whether Miss Stafford knew that or not, during these last few months in which you have been constantly hanging about her, I cannot say: but she knows it now; for you yourself have placed it before her in language impossible to be misunderstood."
"Look here, sir!" cried the Colonel, starting forward.
"Wait and hear me, sir," said John Merton; "you must, you shall! I told you I was prepared to submit to indignity, to endure your sneers and sarcasms. I would not have put myself in the way of them for my sister's sake; but I would for Fanny Stafford."
"Ah, ha!" said the Colonel to himself, "a lover instead of brother; greater virtuous indignation, infinitely more savage, but with less claim to show it."
"I have known her," continued John Merton, "for some years, and it is not too much to say that I have loved her all the time."
"Exactly," said the Colonel complacently.
"I told you I was prepared for sneers," said John; "I shall not shrink from avowing to you even that mine has been a hopeless passion; that, after bearing it a long, long time in silence, I took courage to speak to Miss Stafford, and received a definite and unmistakable dismissal. You will glory in that avowal, because you will think it increases the chances that the answer for which you are waiting will be a favourable one. I know you are waiting for such an answer. You see I know all."
"You seem to be devilish well posted up," growled the Colonel, "certainly."
"I don't think that her rejection of me would influence Miss Stafford one way or the other in this matter; I put myself entirely out of the question. Though her answer will have a certain effect on my future life, I by no means come here as a desponding lover to implore any leniency towards himself from his rival----"
"I should think not," observed the Colonel parenthetically.
"The leniency I would implore must be exercised towards her. I come to you, not as a Christian man to show you the sin you contemplate, and to implore you to avoid its commission; for I have not the right to do so, nor would it be of the least avail; I know that perfectly. I simply come to ask you to spare her, just to spare her."
"Not a bad idea, Mr. Merton," said the Colonel, with his baleful grin. "You are the young warrior who rescues the damsel from the giant's castle, and in gratitude the damsel--though she did not care for him before--of course bestows her hand on him, and they live happy ever after."
"No, by my solemn soul, no! In all human probability I shall never set eyes upon Miss Stafford again; but I should like to know that some honest man's home was cheered by her presence, some honest man's children called her mother, although such happiness is not in store for me."
"Look here, Mr. Merton," said the Colonel. "I have let you run on to a certain length without interrupting you, because you explained at once that you wished to talk off straight away. But I think now I must pull you up, if you please. You have made out a very pretty story, hanging well together, and that kind of thing; and I have not contradicted you because I am not in the habit of lying, and I don't choose to stoop even to what is called prevarication. So, supposing we take all this for granted, I say to you, 'Why don't you speak to the young lady herself? The matter rests with her; it is she who has to decide it.' I shall not appear in George Street with a band of freebooters to carry her off, nor will she be seized upon by any men in black masks as she walks home to her lodgings. This is the latter half of the nineteenth century, when such actions are not common. A simple Yes or No is all she has to say, and the affair is entirely in her hands."
"I told you at once that I did not deny your perspicacity in reading character. You showed it in your selection of my sister as your agent; you show it further in your selection of Miss Stafford"--here John Merton's voice sank to a whisper, and he spoke through his teeth--"to be what you propose to make her. You know that you have exactly gauged the mind and temperament of this girl; that, strong-minded in some things, she is weak in others; vain, too sensitive and too refined for the people with whom she is brought into contact, and longing for luxuries which, while they are denied to her, she sees other people enjoy."
"I must reciprocate your compliment about the knowledge of character, Mr. Merton," said the Colonel; "your description of Miss Stafford appears to me quite exact."
"Knowing this, you know equally well," continued John Merton, "that she is the style of person to be caught by the temptations which you have thought fit to offer her; you know perfectly well that her hesitation in deciding on your proposition is simply caused by the small remnants of the influence of proper bringing-up and self-respect struggling with her wishes and inclinations."
"If Miss Stafford's wishes and inclinations prompt her to do what I am asking her to do, I really cannot see why I should be expected to consent to thwart them and upset my own plans."
"Colonel Orpington," said John Merton, sternly, "I have told you that I would not pretend to thrust the religious side of this question upon you; and in return I have a right to call upon you to drop this society jargon, and let us talk this matter out as men. I will make this concession to your vanity: I will tell you I fully believe that Miss Stafford's future fate is in your hands; that if you choose to persist in the offer which you have made to her, or rather if you do not actually withdraw it, she will become something so degraded that I, who love her so, would sooner see her dead."
"Look here, my good sir," interrupted the Colonel, impatiently; "you were good enough to talk about my using 'society's jargon;' I must trouble you to drop the language of the penny romances. What the deuce do you mean by 'something so degraded?' If Miss Stafford accepts my propositions, she will have everything she wants."
"Will she?" said John Merton, quickly. "Will she have your name? or, even supposing she makes use of it, will she have any lawful right to do so? Will she have the companionship of honest women, the friendship of honest men?"
"She will have, what is a deuced sight better, the envy of pretty women, and the companionship of pleasant fellows," said the Colonel.
"You meet my earnestness with flippancy," said John Merton. "I know Fanny Stafford, and, with all her vanity and all her love of luxury, I know that after a time the life would be insupportable to her. Her proud spirit would never brook the stares which would greet her, and the whisperings which would follow her progress. No amount of money at her command would make up to her for that."
"I still think that this is a matter for Miss Stafford's decision," said the Colonel. "You really cannot expect me to place before her all the disadvantages of my own offer in the strong light in which you review them."
John Merton paused a moment; then he said:
"I will not take up more than five minutes more of your time, Colonel Orpington, but I should like just to discuss this question perhaps rather more from your point of view. What I have hitherto mentioned, you say concerns Miss Stafford; but now about yourself. Supposing events to follow as you have proposed----"
"As I have every expectation they will," said the Colonel, pleasantly smiling.
"You have a right to that expectation," said John. "Well, supposing they so fall out, you are too much a man of the world to expect that your--well, what you are pleased to call your love for Miss Stafford will last for ever."
"It will be uncommonly unlike any other love if it did," said the Colonel.
"Exactly; it will run its course and die out, as similar passions have, I should imagine, expired in previous years. What do you propose to do then?"
"I decline to anticipate such a state of affairs," said the Colonel; "sufficient for the day-----"
"Exactly," said John Merton; "only in this case the evil once done would be sufficient for the rest of your days on earth. Do you imagine that a girl of Fanny Stafford's proud temperament would condescend to accept anything at your hands, when she knew that your feelings for her had died out, and that you were probably spreading for another woman exactly the same nets into which she had been entrapped? I know her well enough to be certain that under such circumstances she would refuse, not merely to be supported by you, but even to see you. What would become of her then? She would take to suicide, the usual resort of her class."
"Most likely she would take to suicide," said the Colonel.
"If she did," said John Merton, very sternly, taking a step in advance, and bringing down his hand upon the table at which the Colonel was sitting, "I don't suppose her death would lie heavily upon your soul; but I would make you answer for it, so help me God!"
"By George, do you threaten me, sir?" said the Colonel, springing to his feet. The next instant he sank easily back into his chair, saying, "Pshaw! the thing is too preposterous; you don't imagine I could fightyou?"
"I had no such idea, Colonel Orpington; but what I threatened just now I would carry out. If this girl becomes your victim, and if that result which I have just foreshadowed, and which seems to me inevitable, should ensue, I will take care that your name is dragged before the public as the girl's seducer and the cause of her ruin. These are not very moral times, but the gay Lothario stamp of man is rather laughed at nowadays, especially when he has not the excuse of youth for his folly; and when mixed up with his folly there are such awkward episodes as desertion and suicide, people no longer laugh at him, they cut him. The newspapers write articles about him; and his friends, who are doing the same thing themselves, but do not labour under the disadvantage of being found out, shake their heads and are compelled to give him up. From all I have heard of you, Colonel Orpington, you are far too fond of society and too great a favourite in it to risk being treated in such a manner for such a temporary amusement."
"If you have heard anything of me, sir," said the Colonel, rising in a rage, "you may have heard that I never brook confounded impertinence, and I'm d--d if I stand it any longer! I will trouble you to leave this house at once, and never let me set eyes on you again," he added, ringing the bell.
"I trust I shall never have occasion to come across you, Colonel Orpington," said John Merton firmly; "whether I do or not entirely rests upon yourself. Depend upon it, that I shall hold to everything I have said, and that I shall not shrink from carrying out what I have fully made up my mind to do on account of any menaces."
He bowed slightly to the Colonel, turned round, and slowly walked from the room.
Left to himself, the Colonel took to pacing up and down the library with great strides. He was evidently labouring under great annoyance; he bit his lips and tossed his head in the air, and muttered to himself as he walked up and down.
"That fellow struck the right note at last," he said. "Insolent brute! All that palaver about honest man's fireside, and children calling her mother, and that kind of thing, one has heard a thousand times; but if all happened as he prophesied--and I confess it is the usual ending to such things--and he made a row as he threatened, it would be deuced unpleasant. He is right about the Lothario business being over; and more than right about people grinning at you when you are mixed up in such matters at fifty years of age. And if it were to come to what he suggested, death and that kind of thing, there would probably be a great row. Those infernal newspaper paragraphs about the heartless seducer--they don't like those things at the Court or the Horse Guards; and then one would have to run the gauntlet of the clubs and that kind of thing. By Jove, it's worth considering whether the game is worth the candle, after all!"
At that moment Miss Orpington entered.
"Who was that person, papa?" said she. "I thought I heard you speak quite angrily to him."
"Very likely, my dear," said the Colonel; "he was a very impertinent and unmannerly person from--from those confoundedly troublesome slate-quarries and lead-mines in South Wales."