Paul Derinzy was left alone in the Principal Registrar's Room, and silence reigned in H.M. Stannaries Office. Snow does not melt away more speedily under the influence of the bright spring sun than do the clerks of that admirable department under the sound of one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Within ten minutes the place was deserted, the gentlemen had all cleared out, the messengers had closed up desks and lockers, despatched papers, and bolted, and the place was left to Mr. Derinzy and the office-keeper. The latter went to the door with the last departing messenger, looked up the street and down the street, and with something of the soreness of a man who knew he was imprisoned for at least thirty-six hours, said he thought they were going to have some rain; an idea which the messenger--who had an engagement to take the young lady with whom he was keeping company to Gravesend on the Sunday--indignantly pooh-poohed. Not to be put down by this sort of thing, the office-keeper declared that rain was wanted by the country, to which the messenger replied that he thought of himself more than the country; and as the country had done without it for three weeks, it might hold over without much bother till Monday, he should think; and nodded, and went his way. The office-messenger kicked the door viciously to, and proceeded to make his round of the various rooms to see that everything was in order, and to turn the key in each door after his inspection. When he came to the Principal Registrar's Room he went in as usual, but finding Mr. Derinzy there performing on his head with two hairbrushes, he begged pardon and retreated, wondering what the deuce possessed anyone to stop in the Office of H.M. Stannaries when he had the chance of leaving it and going anywhere else. A cynical fellow this office-keeper, only to be humanised by his release on Monday morning.
Mr. Paul Derinzy was in no special hurry, he had plenty of time before him, and he had his toilette to attend to; a business which, though he was no set dandy, he never scamped. He was very particular about the exact parting of his hair, the polish of his nails, and the set of his necktie; and between each act of dressing he went back to his writing-table, and re-read the little note lying upon, it. Once or twice he took the little note up, and whispered "darling!" to it, and kissed it before he put it down again. Poor Paul! he was evidently very hard hit, and just at the time of life, too, when these wounds fester and rankle so confoundedly. Yourci-devant jeune homme, your middle-aged gallant,viveur, coureur des dames, takes a love-affair as easily as his dinner: if it goes well, all right; if it comes to grief, equally all right; the sooner it is over the better he likes it. The great cynical philosopher of the age, whose cynicism it is now the fashion to deny--as though he could help it, or would have been in the least ashamed of it--in one of his ballads calls upon all his coevals of forty to declare:
Did not the fairest of the fair Common grow, and wearisome, ere /Ever a month had passed away?
Did not the fairest of the fair Common grow, and wearisome, ere /Ever a month had passed away?
Middle-aged man has other aims, other resources, other objects. The "court, camp, grove, the vessel and the mart," fame, business, ambition--all of these have claims upon his time, claims which he is compelled to recognise in their proper season; and, worst of all, he has recovered from the attacks of the "cruel madness of love," a youthful disorder, seldom or never taken in middle life; the glamour which steeped all surrounding objects in roseate hues no longer exists, and it is impossible to get up any spurious imitations of it. Time has taught him common sense; he has made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; and instead of wandering about the grounds begging Maud to come out to him, and singing rapturous nonsense to the flowers, he is indoors dining with the Tory squires. But the young have but one idea in the world. They are entirely of opinion, with Mr. Coleridge's hero, that all thoughts, "all passions, all delights that stir this mortal frame," are "ministers of love," and "feed his sacred flame." Perpetually to play at that sweet game of lips, to alternate between the heights of hope and the depths of despair, to pine for a glance and to be made happy by a word, to have no care for anything else, to ignore the friends in whose society you have hitherto found such delight, to shut your eyes knowingly, wilfully, and resolutely to the sight of everything but one object, and to fall down and persistently adore that object in the face of censure, contempt, and obloquy, is granted to but few men over thirty years of age. Let them not be ashamed of the weakness, rather let them congratulate themselves on its possession: it will give a zest and flavour to their middle life which but few enjoy.
Paul Derinzy, however, was just at that period of his life when everything is rose-coloured. He was even young enough to enjoy looking at himself in the glass, which is indeed a proof of youth; for there is no face or no company a man so soon gets sick of as his own. But Paul stood before the little glass behind the washing-screen settling his hat, and gazing at himself very complacently, even going so far as to fetch another little glass from his drawer, and by aid of the two ascertaining that his back parting was perfectly straight. As he replaced the glass, he took out a yellow rosebud, carefully wrapped in wool, cleared it from its envelope, and sticking it in his buttonhole, took his departure.
Paul looked up at the Horse-Guards clock as he passed by, and finding that he had plenty of time to spare, walked slowly up Whitehall. The muslin-cravated, fresh-coloured, country gentlemen at the Union Club, and the dyed and grizzled veterans at the Senior United, looked out of the window at the young man as he passed, and envied him his youth and his health and his good looks. He strolled up Waterloo Place just as the insurance-offices with which that district abounds were being closed for the half-holiday, and the insurance-clerks, young gentlemen who, for the most part, mould themselves in dress and manners upon Government officials, took mental notes of Paul's clothes, and determined to have them closely imitated so soon as the state of their salaries permitted. Quite unconscious of this sincerest flattery, Paul continued his walk, striking across into Piccadilly, and lounging leisurely along until he came to the Green Park, which he entered, and sat down for a few minutes. It was the dull time of the day--when the lower half of society was at dinner, and the upper half at luncheon--and there was scarcely anyone about. After a short rest, Paul looked at his watch, and muttering to himself, "She can't have started yet; I may just as well have the satisfaction of letting my eyes rest on her as she walks to the Gardens," he rose, and turned his steps back again. He turned up Bond Street, and off through Conduit Street into George Street, Hanover Square, and there, just by St. George's Church, he stopped.
Not to the church, however, was his attention directed, but to the house immediately opposite to it. A big, red-faced, old-fashioned house, fresh painted and pointed, with plate-glass windows in its lower stories, and bronzed knockers, and shining bell-pulls, looking like a portly dowager endeavouring to assume modern airs and graces. Carriages kept driving up, and depositing old and young ladies, and the door, on which was an enormous brass plate with "Madame Clarisse," in letters nearly half a foot long, was perpetually being flung open by a page with a very shiny face, produced by a judicious combination of yellow soap and friction--a page who, in his morning-jacket ruled with red lines, looked like a page of an account-book. Paul Derinzy knew many of these carriage-brought people--for Madame Clarisse was the fashionable milliner of London, and had none but the very greatest of fine ladies in herclientèle--and many of them knew him; but on the present occasion he carefully shrouded himself from observation behind one of the pillars of the church portico. There he remained in an agony of impatience, fidgeting about, looking at his watch, glaring up at the bright-faced house, and anathematising the customers, until the clock in the church-tower above him chimed the half-hour past two. Then he became more fidgety than ever. Before, he had taken short turns up and down the street, always returning sharply to the same spot, and looking round as though he had expected some remarkable alteration to have taken place during his ten seconds' absence; now, he stood behind the pillar, never attempting to move from the spot, but constantly peering across the way at Madame Clarisse's great hall-door.
Within five minutes of the chiming of the clock, the great hall-door was opened so quietly that it was perfectly apparent the demonstrative page was not behind it. A young woman, simply and elegantly dressed in a tight-fitting black silk gown, and a small straw bonnet trimmed with green ribbon, with a black lace shawl thrown loosely across her shoulders and hanging down behind, after a French fashion then in vogue, passed out, closing the door softly behind her, and started off in the direction of the Park. Then Paul Derinzy left his hiding-place, and, at a discreet distance, followed in pursuit.
There must have been something very odd or very attractive in the personal appearance of this young woman, for she undoubtedly attracted a vast deal of attention as she passed through the streets. It would require something special, one would imagine, to intervene between a man and the toothache; and yet a gentleman seated in a dentist's ante-room in George Street, with a face swollen to twice its natural size, and all out of drawing, and vainly endeavouring to solace himself, and to forget the coming wrench, with the pleasant pages of a ten-years'-oldBentleys Miscellany, flung the book aside as he saw the girl go by, and crammed himself into a corner of the window to look after her retreating figure. Two sporting gentlemen standing at the freshly-sanded door of Limmer's Hotel, smoking cigars, and muttering to each other in whispers of forthcoming "events," suspended their conversation and exchanged a rapid wink as she flitted by them. The old boys sunning themselves in Bond Street, pottering into Ebers' for their stalls, or pricing fish at Groves's, were very much fluttered by the girl's transient appearance among them. The little head was carried very erect, and there must have been something in the expression of the face which daunted the veterans, and prevented them from addressing her. One or two gave chase, but soon found out that the gouty feet so neatly incased in varnished boots had no chance with this modern Atalanta, who sailed away without a check, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Nor were men her only admirers; ladies sitting in their carriages at shop-doors would look at her half in wonderment, half in admiration, and whisper to each other: "What a pretty girl!" and these compliments pleased her immensely, and brought the colour to her face, adding to her beauty.
She crossed into the Park through Grosvenor Gate, and taking the path that lay immediately in front of her, went straight ahead about half-way between the Serpentine and the Bayswater Road, then through the little iron gate into Kensington Gardens, and across the turf for some distance until she came in sight of a little avenue of trees, through which glimmered the shining waters of the Round Pond, backed by the rubicund face of stout old Kensington Palace. Then she slackened her pace a little, and began to look around her. There were but few, very few people near: two or three valetudinarians sunning themselves on such of the benches as were in sufficient repair; a few children playing about while their nursemaids joined forces and abused their employers; a shabby-genteel man eating a sandwich of roll-and-sausage--obviously his dinner--in a shamefaced way, and drinking short gulps out of a tin flask under the shadow of his hat; and a vagabond dog or two, delighted at having escaped the vigilance of the park-keeper, and snapping, yelping, and performing acrobatic feats of tumbling, out of what were literally pure animal spirits. Valetudinarians, children, nursemaids, and dogs were evidently not what the girl had come to see, for she stopped, struck the stick-handle of her open parasol against her shoulder, and murmured, "How provoking!" Just at that instant Paul Derinzy, who had been following her tolerably closely, touched her arm. She started, wheeled swiftly round, and her eyes brightened and the flush rose in her cheeks as she cried:
"Oh, Mr. Douglas!"
"'Mr. Douglas,' Daisy!" said Paul Derinzy, with uplifted eyebrows; "'and why this courtesy,' as we say in Sir Walter Scott?"
"I mean Paul," said the girl; "but you startled me so, I scarcely knew what I said."
"Ah, 'Paul' is much better. The idea of your calling me anything else!"
"I don't know, I rather think you're 'Mr. Douglas' just now. You're always 'Mr. Douglas,' recollect, when I'm at all displeased with you, and I've lots of things for you to explain to-day."
"Fire away, child! Let's turn out of the path first, in amongst these trees. So--that is better. Now then, what is the first?--by Jove, pet, how stunning you look to-day!"
A vulgar but expressive term, and one in general acceptance ten years ago. One, too, by no means inexpressive of the girl's beauty, for she was beautiful, and in a style that was then uncommon. She had red hair. Nowadays red hair is by no means uncommon; it may be seen hanging in bunches in thecoiffeurs'shops, and, with black roots, on the heads of most of the Dryads of the Wood. Ten years ago, to have red hair was to be subjected to chaff by the street-boys, to be called "carrots" by the vulgar, and to be pitied silently by the polite. Red hairau naturelwas almost unknown--it was greased, and pomatumed, and cosmetiqued, and flattened intobandeaux, and twisted into ringlets, and deepened and darkened and disguised in every possible shape and way; it was "auburn," it was "chestnut," it was anything but red. This girl had red hair, and hated it, but was too proud to attempt to disguise it. So she wore it in a thick dry mass, heavy and crisp, and low on the forehead, and it suited her dead-white skin, creamy white, showing the rising blood on the smallest provocation, and her thin cheeks, and her pointed chin, and her gray eyes, and her long, but slightly impertinent, nose. No wonder people in the street turned round and stared at her; they had been educated up to the raven locks, and the short straight noses, and the rounded chin style of beauty, formed on the true classical model, and they could not understand this kind of thing except in a picture of Mr. Dante Rossetti, or young Mr. Millais, or some of those other new-fangled artists who, they supposed, were clever, but who were decidedly "odd."
There was no doubt about her beauty, though, and none about her style. So Paul Derinzy thought, as he looked her up and down on saying the last-recorded words, and marked her tall,svelte, lissom figure; her neatly-shod, neatly-gloved feet and hands; her light walk, so free and yet so stately; and the simple elegance of her dress.
"You are a stunner, pet, and I adore you! There, having delivered myself of those mild observations, I will suffer you to proceed. You had a lot of things to say to me? Fire away!"
"In the first place, why were you not here to meet me, Mr. Douglas?"
"Again that detestable formality! Daisy, I swear, if you call me that again, I'll kiss you,--coram publico, en plein air, here before everybody; and that child, who will not take its eyes off us, will swallow the hoopstick it is now sucking, and its death will lie at your door."
"No, but seriously--where have you been?"
"You want to know? Well, then, I don't mind telling you that I've followed you every foot of the way from George Street. Ah, you may well blush, young woman! I was the heartbroken witness of your flirtation with those youths in Bond Street."
"Horrid old things! No, but, Paul, did you really follow me from Madame's? Were you there to see me come out?"
"My child, I was there for three mortal quarters of an hour before you came out."
"That was very nice of you;bien gentil, as Mdlle. Augustine says. I wish you knew Mdlle. Augustine, she's a very great friend of Madame's."
"I wish I was Mdlle. Augustine. I say, Daisy, doesn't Madame Clarisse want a male hand in the business--something in the light-porter line? I'm sure it would suit me better than that beastly office."
"What office, Paul?"
"Why, my office, darling; where I go every day. Do you mean to say I didn't tell you about that, Daisy?"
"Certainly not; you've told me nothing about yourself."
"Well, you see, I've known you so short a time, and seen so little of you. Oh yes, I go to an office."
"Do you mean to say you're a clerk?"
"Well, yes--not to put too fine a point upon it, I suppose I am."
"What! a lawyer's clerk?"
"No, no! D--n it all, Daisy, not as bad as that, nothing of the kind. Government office, Civil servant of the Crown, and all that kind of thing, don't you understand? Her Majesty's Stannaries--one of the principal departments of the State."
"And do you go there every day, Mr.--I mean, Paul?"
"Well, I'm supposed to, my darling; point of fact, I do go there--generally."
"Why don't you let me write to you there?"
"Write to me there! at the office! My dear child, there are the most stringent rules of the service against it. Any man in the office receiving a letter from a lady at the office would be--would be had up before the House of Commons, and very probably committed to the Tower!"
"What a curious thing! I thought you had nothing to do."
"Nothing to do! My darling Daisy, no galley-slave who tugs at the what-d'ye-call-em--oar--works harder than I do, as, indeed, Lord Palmerston has often acknowledged."
"And you're well paid for it? I mean, you get lots of money?" asked the girl, looking straight up into his face.
"Ye-yes, child. Yes, statecraft is tolerably well remunerated. Besides, men in my position have generally something else to live upon, some private means, some allowances from their people."
"Their people? Oh, you mean their families. Yes, that must be very nice. Have you any--any people?"
"Yes, Daisy, my father and mother are both alive."
"They don't live with you in Hanover Street?"
"Oh no; they live down in the country, a long way off--down in the West of England."
"And they're rich, I suppose?"
"Yes, they're very fairly off."
"And how many brothers and sisters have you, Paul?"
"None, darling; I am the only child; the entire hopes of the family are centred in this charming creature. Have you finished your questions, you inquisitive puss?"
"Quite. Did it sound inquisitive? I daresay it did; I daresay my foolish chatter was boring you."
"My pet Daisy, I'd sooner hear what you call your foolish chatter than anything in the world--much sooner than Tamberlik'sut de poitrine, that all the musical people are raving about just now. See, darling, let us sit down here. Take off your glove--this right glove. No? what nonsense! I may kiss your hand; there's no one looking but that fat child in the brown-holland knickerbockers, and if he doesn't turn his eyes away, I'll make a face at him, and frighten him into convulsions. There; now tell me about yourself."
"About myself? I've nothing to tell, Paul, except that we're horribly busy, and Madame plagues our lives out."
"Had you any difficulty in getting out to-day? You thought you would have when last I saw you."
"Dreadful difficulty; Madame fussed and fumed, and declared that she could not possibly let me go; but I insisted; and as the customers like me, and always ask for me, I suppose I am too valuable for her to say much."
"By the way, Daisy, do any men ever come to your place--with the women, I mean?"
"Sometimes; the husbands or the brothers of the ladies."
"Exactly. I suppose they don't--I mean, I suppose you don't--what a fool I am! No matter. Are you going back there this evening?"
"Yes, Madame would not let me come until I promised to be back by six to see the parcels off. Madame's going to the Opera to-night, and she'll be dressing at the time, and she must have somebody there she can depend upon."
"And you are the somebody, Daisy? How deuced nice to be able to reckon upon finding you anywhere when one wanted you! No, I say; no one can see my arm, it's quite covered by your shawl, and it fits so beautifully round your waist, just as if you had been measured for it at Madame Clarisse's. Well, and what time will you be free?"
"Between eight and nine, I suppose; nearer nine."
"May I meet you when you come away, Daisy? Will you come with me to the theatre?"
"No, Paul; you know perfectly well that I will not. You know it is not of the slightest use proposing such things to me."
"Yes, I know it's of no use; I wish it were; it would be so jolly, and--then you'll go straight back to South Molton Street?"
"Yes; to my garret!" and she laughed, rather a hard laugh, as she said these words.
"Don't say that, Daisy; I hate to hear you say that word."
"It's the right word, Paul, horrid or not. However, I shall get out of it some day, I suppose."
"How?" asked Paul, withdrawing his arm from her waist, and looking fixedly at her.
"How should I know?" said the girl, with the same hard laugh. "Feet foremost, perhaps, in my coffin. Somehow, at all events."
"You're in a curious mood to-day, Daisy."
"Am I? You'll see me in many curious moods, if we continue to know each other long, Paul--which I very much doubt, by the way."
"Daisy, what makes you say that? You've not seen anyone--you've not heard--I mean, you don't intend to break with me, Daisy?"
"There is nothing to break, my poor Paul!"
"Whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that you remain in what you call your garret? Whose fault is it that you are compelled to obey Madame Clarisse, and to dance attendance on her infernal customers? Not mine, you must allow that. You know what is the dearest wish of my heart--you know how often I have proposed that----"
"Stop, sir," said Daisy, laying her ungloved hand upon his mouth; "you know how often I have forbidden you to touch upon that subject, and now you dare to disobey merely because I was foolish enough to be off my guard for a moment, and to let some grumbling escape my lips. No, no, Paul, let us be sensible; it is very well as it is. We enjoy these stolen meetings; at least, I do----"
"And you think I don't, I suppose? Oh no, certainly not!"
"You very rude bear, why do you interrupt me? I don't think anything of the sort. I know you enjoy them too. Then why should we bother ourselves about the future?"
"No; but you don't understand, Daisy. It seems so deuced hard for me to have to see you for such a short time, and then for you to have to go away, and----"
"Don't you think it is quite as hard for me?"
"But then I'm so fond of you, don't you know! I love you so much, Daisy."
"And do you imagine I don't care for you? I don't say how much, but I know it must be more than a little."
"How do you know that, darling?"
"Because my love for you has conquered my pride, Paul. That shows me at once, without anything else, that I must love you. Do you think if I didn't care for you that I would consent to all this subterfuge and mystery which always surrounds us? Do you imagine that I have no eyes and no perception? Do you think I don't notice that you have chosen this place for our meeting because it is quite quiet and secluded? That when anyone having the least appearance of belonging to your world comes near us, you are in an agony, and turn your head aside, or cover your face with your hand, lest you should be recognised? Do you think I haven't noticed all this? And do you think I don't know that all these precautions are taken, and all this fear is undergone, because you are walking withme?"
"My darling Daisy----"
"It's my own fault, Paul. Understand, I quite allow that. I am not in your rank of life. I am Madame Clarisse's show-woman; and I ought to look for my lovers amongst Messrs. Lewis and Allenby's young drapers, or the assistants at Godfrey and Cooke's, the chemists. They would be very proud to be seen with me, and would probably take me out on Sundays, along the Hammersmith Road in a four-wheel chaise. However, I hate chemists and drapers and four-wheel chaises, and prefer walking in this gloomy grove with you, Paul."
"You're a queer child," said Paul, with a sigh of relief at the subject being, as he thought, ended, and with a gratified smile at the pleasant words Daisy had last spoken.
"Yes," she said; "queer enough, Heaven knows! I suppose my dislike to those kind of people is because I was decently born and educated; and I can't forget that even now, when I'm only a milliner's shop-girl. But with all my queerness, I was right in what I said, wasn't I, Paul?"
"Why, my darling, it's a question, don't you see. I don't care for myself; I should be only too proud for people to think that I--that a girl like you would be about with me, and that kind of thing; but it's one's people, don't you know, and all that infernal cant and conventionality."
"Exactly. Now let us take a turn up and down the gloomy grove, and talk about something else."
She rose as she spoke, and passed her arm through his, and they began slowly pacing up and down among the trees. The "something else" which formed the subject of their talk it is not very difficult to divine, and though apparently deeply interesting to them, it would not be worth transcription. It was the old, old subject, which retains its glamour in all countries and in all places, and which was as entrancing in that bit of cockney paradise, with the smoke-discoloured trees waving above them, and the dirty sheep nibbling near them, as it was to OEnone on Ida, or to Desdemona in Venice.
So they strolled about, trying endless variations of the same tune, until it became time for Daisy to think of returning to her place of business. Paul, after a little inward struggle with himself, proposed to walk with her as far as the Marble Arch; there would be no one in that part of the Park, he thought, of whom he need have the slightest fear; and Daisy appearing to be delighted, they started off. Just before they reached the end of the turf by the Marble Arch they stopped to say adieux. These apparently took a long time to get over, for Daisy's delicate little glove was retained in Paul's grasp, her face was upturned, and he was looking into it with love and passion in his eyes. So that they neither of them observed a tall gentleman who had just entered the gates, and was striking across the Park when his eyes fell upon them, and who honoured them, not with a mere cursory glance, but with an intense and a prolonged stare. This gentleman was George Wainwright.
"Was I a-dreamin', or did my Ann really tell me that somebody'd come down late last night in a po'-shay and driven to the Tower?" asked Mrs. Powler, the morning after her little supper-party, of Mrs. Jupp, who, whenever she could find a minute to spare from the troubles of housekeeping, was in the habit of "dropping-in" to gossip with her older and less active neighbour.
"You weren't dreamin', dear; at least, I should say not, unless you have dreams like them chief butlers and bakers, and other cur'ous pipple in the Bible one reads of, which had their dreams 'terpreted. It's quite true--not that it's made more so by your Ann having said it; for a more shameful little liar there don't talk in this parish!" said Mrs. Jupp, getting very red in the face.
"You never took kindly to that gell, Mrs. Jupp," said the old lady placidly--she was far too rich to get in a rage--"you never took kindly to that gell from the first, when I took her out of charity, owin' to her father's being throwed out of work on account of Jupp's cousin stoppin' payment."
Though said in Mrs. Fowler's calmest tones, and without a change of expression on the speaker's childish old face, this was meant to be a hard hit, and was received as such by Mrs. Jupp.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout stoppin' payment, nor Jupp's cousins," said that lady, with a redundancy of negatives and a very shrill voice; "my own fam'ly has always paid their way, and Jupp has a 'count at the Devon Bank, where his writin' is as good as gold, and will be so long as I live. But Iduknow that I've never liked that gell Ann Bradshaw since she told a passil o' lies about my Joey and the hen-roost!"
"Well, well, never mind Ann Bradshaw," said Mrs. Powler, who had had vast experience of Mrs. Jupp's powers of boredom in connection with the subject of her Joey and the hen-roost; "never mind about the gell; I allays kip her out o' your way, and I must ha' been main thoughtless when I let her name slip out just now before you. So someone did come in a po'-shay last night, then, and did drive to the Tower? Do you know who it was?"
"Not of my own knowledge," replied Mrs. Jupp in a softened voice--it would never have done to have quarrelled with Mrs. Powler, from whom she derived much present benefit, and from whom she expected a legacy--"but Groper, who was up there this morning wi' the sallt water for the Captain's bath, says it's the Doctor."
"Lor', now!" said Mrs. Powler, lifting up her hands in astonishment; "I can't fancy why passons go messin' wi' sallt water, and baths, and such-like. They must be main dirty, one would think, to take such a lot o' washin'. I'm sure Powler and I never did such redick'lous nonsense, and we was always well thought of, I believe. Lor', now, I've bin and forgotten who you said it was come down. Who was it, Harriet?"
"The Doctor from London--Wheelwright, or some such name; he that comes down three or four times a-year just to look at Mrs. Derinzy."
"He must be a cliver doctor, I du 'low, if his lookin' at her is enough to do her good," said Mrs. Powler, who was extremely literal in all things; "not but what she's that bad, poor soul, that anything must be a comfort to her."
"Did you ever hear tell what was ezackly the matter wi' the Captain's lady, Mrs. Powler?" asked Mrs. Jupp mysteriously.
"Innards," said the old lady in a hollow voice, laying her hand on the big mother-o'-pearl buckle by which her broad sash was kept together.
"Ah, but what sort of innards?" demanded Mrs. Jupp, who was by no means to be put off with a general answer on such an important subject.
"That I dunno," said Mrs. Powler, unwillingly confessing her ignorance. "Dr. Barton attends her in a or'nary way, but I niver heerd him say."
"It must be one of them obstinit diseases as we women has," said Mrs. Jupp, "as though--not to fly in the face of Providence--but as though child-bearin' wasn't enough to have us let off all the rest!"
"She niver takes no med'cine," said Mrs. Powler, who firmly believed in the virtues of the Pharmacopoeia, and whose pride it was that the deceased Powler, in his last illness, had swallowed "quarts and quarts." "I know that from that fair-haired young chap that mixes Barton's drugs,--his mother was a kind o' c'nexion o' Fowler's, and I had 'im up to tea a Sunday week, and asked him."
"Well, I'd like very much to know what is the matter wi' Mrs. Derinzy," said Mrs. Jupp, harking back. "I ha' my own idea on the subjick; but I'd like to know for sure."
"If you're so cur'ous, you'd better ask Dr. Barton. He's just gone passt the window, and I 'spose he'll look in;" and almost before Mrs. Powler had finished her sentence there came a soft rap at the room-door, the handle was gently turned, and Dr. Barton presented himself.
He was a short, thickset, strongly-built man of about fifty-five, with close curly gray hair, bright eyes, mottled complexion, large hooked nose. He was dressed in a black cut-away coat, stained buff waistcoat, drab riding-breeches, and top-boots. He had a way of laying his head on one side, and altogether reminded one irresistibly of Punch.
"Good-morning, ladies," said the doctor, in a squeaky, throaty little voice, which tended to heighten the resemblance; "I seem to ha' dropped in just in the nick o' time, by the looks of ye. Mayhap you were talking about me. Mrs. Jupp, you don't mean to say that----" and the little man whispered the conclusion of the sentence behind his hat to Mrs. Jupp, while he privately winked at Mrs. Powler.
"Get 'long wi' ye, du!" said Mrs. Jupp, her face suffused with crimson.
"I niver see such a man in all my born days," said old Mrs. Powler, with whom the doctor was a special favourite, laughing until the tears made watercourses of her wrinkles, and were genially irrigating her face. "No; no such luck, I tell her."
"Well, as to luck, that all a matter o' taste," said Mrs. Jupp; "we were talking about something quite different to that."
"What was it?" asked the doctor.
"'Bout Mrs. D'rinzy's health Harriet was asking," explained Mrs. Powler.
"A-h!" said the doctor, shaking his head, and looking very solemn.
"Is she so bad as all that?" asked Mrs. Jupp, who was visibly impressed by the medico's pantomime.
"Great sufferer, great sufferer!" said the little man, with a repetition of the head-shake.
"Well, but she gets about; comes down into t' village, and such-like," argued Mrs. Powler.
"Oh yes; no reason why she shouldn't; more she gets about, indeed, the better," said the doctor.
"It's innards, I suppose?" asked Mrs. Jupp, whose craving for particulars of Mrs. Derinzy's disorder was yet unsatisfied.
"Well, partially, partially," said the doctor, slowly rubbing the side of his nose with the handle of his riding-whip; "it's a complication, a mixture, which it would be difficult to get an unprofessional person to understand."
"Talkin' o' that, Barton," said Mrs. Powler, "I s'pose you know the London doctor came down last night?"
"Dr. Wainwright? Oh yes; I was up at the Tower just now to meet him. As I'm left in charge of Mrs. Derinzy, we always have a consultation whenever he comes down."
"I s'pose he's a raal cliver man, this Wheelwright, or they wouldn't have him come all this way to see her," said Mrs. Powler.
"Clever!" echoed the doctor; "the very first man of the day; the very first!"
"Then why wasn't he sent for to see Sir Herc'les when he was laid up that bad last spring?" asked Mrs. Jupp; "there was another one come down from London then."
"That was quite a different case, my dear madam. Sir Hercules Dingo was laid up with gout; Mrs. Derinzy's complaint is not gout; and Dr. Wainwright is the first man of the day in--well, in such cases as Mrs. Derinzy's."
No more specific information than this could Mrs. Jupp obtain from the doctor, who was "that close when he liked," as his friends said of him, that even the blandishments of Mrs. Barton failed to extract any of his professional secrets. So Mrs. Jupp gave it up in despair, and began talking on general topics. Be sure the conversation did not progress far without the Derinzys again cropping up in it. They were staple subjects of discussion in Beachborough, and the most preposterous stories regarding them and their origin, whence and why they came to the remote Devonshire village, and the reason for their enforced stay there, obtained, if not credence, at least circulation. What their real history was, I now propose to tell.
Five-and-twenty years before the date of this story, the firm of Derinzy and Sons was well known and highly esteemed in the City of London. They were supposed to have been originally of Polish extraction, and their name to have been Derinski; but it had been painted up as Derinzy for years on the door-posts of their warehouse in Gough Square, Fleet Street, and it was so spelt on all the invoices, bill-heads, and other commercial literature of the firm. Warehouses, invoices, and bill-heads? Yes, despite their Polish extraction and distinguished name, the Derinzys were neither more nor less than furriers--wholesale, and on a large scale, it was true, but still furriers. Their business was enormous, and their profits immense. The old father, Peter Derinzy, who had founded the firm, and whose business talent and industry were the main causes of its success, had given up active attendance, and was beginning to take life leisurely. He came down twice a week, perhaps, in a handsome carriage-and-pair, to Gough Square, just glanced over the books, and occasionally looked at some samples of skins, on which his opinion--still the most reliable in the whole trade--was requested by his son, and then went back to his mansion at Muswell Hill, where his connection with business was unknown or ignored, and where he was Squire Derinzy, dwelling in luxury, and passing his time in the superintendence of his graperies and pineries, his forcing-houses and his farm.
The affairs of the house did not suffer by the old gentleman's absence. In his eldest son Paul, on whom the command devolved in his father's absence, the senior partner had a representative possessing all the experience and tact which he had gained, combined with the youth and energy which he had lost. Men of high standing in the City of London, many years his seniors, were glad to know Paul Derinzy, eager to ask his advice, and, what is quite a different matter, frequently not unwilling to take it in regard to the great speculations of the day. The merchants from the North of Europe with whom he transacted business--and to all of whom he spoke in their own language, without the slightest betrayal of foreign accent or lack of idiom--looked upon him as an absolute wonder, more especially when contrasted with his own countrymen, who for the most part spoke nothing but English, and little of that beyond oaths, and spread his renown far and wide. He was a tall, high-shouldered, big-boned man, prematurely bald, and, being very short-sighted, wore a large pair of spectacles, which impelled his younger brother Alexis, then fresh from school, and just received into the counting-house, to be initiated into the mysteries of trade preparatory to being made a partner, to call him "Gig-lamps." Paul Derinzy was not a good-tempered man, and at any time would have disliked this impertinence; but addressed to him as it was, before the clerks, it nettled him exceedingly. He forbade its repetition under pain of summary punishment, and when it was repeated, being a big strong man, he caught his younger brother by the collar, dragged him out of the counting-house to a secluded part of the warehouse, and then and there thrashed him to his heart's content. It was, perhaps, this summary treatment, combined with a dislike for desk-work and indoor confinement, that induced Master Alexis to resign his clerical stool and to suggest to his father the propriety of purchasing for him a commission in the army. Old Derinzy was by no means disposed to act upon this idea, but his wife, who worshipped and spoiled her youngest son, urged it very strongly; and as Paul, who was of course consulted, recommended it as by far the best thing that could be done for his brother, the old gentleman at last gave way, and in a very short time young Alexis was gazetted as cornet in a hussar regiment then on its way home from India, and joined the depot at Canterbury.
After that little episode, Paul Derinzy took small heed of his brother's proceedings, or, indeed, of anything save his business, in which he seemed to be entirely absorbed. He was there early and late, taking his dinner at a tavern, and retiring to chambers in Chancery Lane, where he read philosophical treatises and abstruse foreign philosophical works until bedtime. He had no intimate friends, and never went into society. Even after his mother's death, when he spent most of his leisure time, such as it was, at Muswell Hill, with his father, then become very old and feeble, he shrank from meeting the neighbours, and was looked upon as an oddity and a recluse. In the fulness of time old Peter Derinzy died, leaving, it was said, upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. By his will he bequeathed twenty thousand pounds to his second son, Captain Alexis Derinzy, while the whole of the rest of his fortune went to his son Paul, who was left sole executor.
Captain Alexis Derinzy made use of very strong language when he learned the exact amount of the legacy bequeathed to him by his father's will. He had been always given to understand, he said, that the governor was a hundred-thousand-pound man, and he thought it deuced hard that he shouldn't have had at least a third of what was left, specially considering that he was a married man with a family, whereas that money-grubbing old tradesman, his elder brother, had nobody but himself to look after. The statement of Captain Derinzy's marriage was so far correct. About two years previous to his father's death, the Captain being at the time, like another captain famed in song, "in country quarters," had made the acquaintance of a young lady, the daughter of a clever, ne'er-do-weel, pot-walloping artist, who, when sober, did odd bits of portrait-painting, and, among other jobs, had painted correct likenesses of Captain Derinzy's two chargers. Captain Derinzy's courtship of the artist's daughter, unlike that of his prototype in verse, was carried on with the strictest decorum, not, one is bound to say, from any fault of the Captain's, who wished and intended to assimilate it to scores of other such affairs which he had had under what he considered similar circumstances. But the truth was that he had never met anyone like Miss Gertrude Skrymshire before. A pretty woman, delicate-looking, and thoroughly feminine, she was far more of an old soldier than the Captain, with all his barrack training and his country-garrison experience. Years before, when she was a mere child of fourteen, she had made up her mind, after experience of her father's career and prospects, that Bohemianism, for a woman at least, was a most undesirable state, and she had determined that she would marry either for wealth or position; the latter preferable, she thought, as the former might be afterwards attainable by her own ready wit and cleverness; while if she married abon bourgeois, she must be content to remain in Bloomsbury, Bedfordshire, or wherever she might be placed, and must abandon all hope of rising. When Captain Derinzy first came fluttering round her, she saw the means to her end, and determined to profit thereby. She was a very pretty young woman of her style, red and white, with black eyes and flattened black hair, altogether very like those Dutch dolls fashionable at that period, who were made of shiny composition down to their busts, but then diverged abruptly into calico and sawdust. She had a trim waist and a neat ankle, and what is called nowadays a very "fetching" style, and she made desperate havoc with Captain Derinzy's heart; so much so, that when she declined with scorn to listen to any of the eccentric--to say the least of them--propositions which he made to her, and forbade him her presence for daring to make them, he, after staying away one day, during which he was intensely wretched, and would have taken to drinking but that he had tried it before without effect, and would have drowned himself but that he did not want to die, came down and made an open declaration of his love to Gertrude, and a formal proposal for her hand to Skrymshirepère.
Alick Derinzy had had Luck for his friend several times in his life; he had "pulled off" some good things in sweepstakes, and been fortunate in his speculations on "events;" but he never made such acoupas when he took Gertrude Skrymshire for his wife. She undertook theménageat once, sold off his unnecessary horses, and paid off outstanding ticks; made him get an invitation for himself and her to Muswell Hill, and spent a week there, during which she ingratiated herself with the old gentleman, and specially with Paul; speedily took the reins of government into her hands, and drove her husband skilfully, without ever letting him feel the bit. When his father died, and Alick was for crying out at the smallness of his legacy, Gertrude stopped his mouth, pointing out that they had a sufficiency to live on, to which the sale of her husband's commission would add; that they could go and live in a small house in a good suburb of town, where they could make it very comfortable for Paul, who would doubtless see a good deal of them, and who, as he was never likely to marry, would most probably leave his enormous fortune totheirPaul, their only son, who, of course without any definite views, had been named after his uncle.
It was a notable scheme, well-planned and well-executed, but it failed. Alick sold out, and they took a pleasant little house at Brompton, a suburb then not much known, and principally inhabited, as now, by actors and authors; and they furnished it charmingly, and Gertrude herself went down in her deep mourning into the City, and penetrated to Paul's sanctum in Gough Square, and insisted on his coming to stay a day or two with them, and gained his promise that he would come. On her return she said she had found Paul very much altered, but when her husband asked her in what manner, she could not explain herself. Alick himself explained it in his own peculiar barrack-room and billiard-table phraseology, after he had seen his brother, expressing his opinion that that worthy was "going off his head, by G--!"
No doubt Paul Derinzy was a changed man. It was not that he looked much older than his years--that he had always done; but his skin was discoloured, his eyes lustreless, his head bowed, his spirit gone. He said himself that twenty years' incessant labour without any holiday had told upon him, and that he was determined at last to take some rest. He should start immediately with Herr Schadow, one of their largest customers, for Berlin and St. Petersburg, and should probably be away for some months. Dockress, who had been brought up from boyhood in Gough Square, and who knew every trick and turn of the trade, would manage the business during his absence, and he should go away perfectly satisfied that things would go on just as smoothly as if he were there to overlook them.
Paul Derinzy carried out his intention. He went away to the Continent with Herr Schadow, and Mr. Dockress took charge of the business in Gough Square. He heard several times from his principal within the next few weeks, letters dated from various places, their contents always relating to business. Mrs. Alick had also several letters from her brother-in-law, but to her he wrote on different topics. He seemed to be in wonderful spirits, wrote long descriptions of the places he had visited, and humorous accounts of people he had met; said he felt himself quite a different man, that he had just begun to enjoy life, and looked upon all his earlier years as completely lost to him. He loathed the very name of business, he said, and hated the mere idea of coming back to England. He should certainly go as far as St. Petersburg, and prolong his stay abroad as long as he felt amused by it. He arrived in St. Petersburg. Dockress heard of him from there relative to consignment of some special skins which he had been lucky enough to get hold of, and which his old business instinct, not to be so easily shaken off as he imagined, prompted him to buy. Mrs. Alick also heard from him a fortnight later; he described the place as delightful, the society as charming, said he was "going out a good deal," and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Then nothing was heard of him for weeks by the family in the pretty little house at Brompton, and Mrs. Alick became full of wonderment as to his movements. Dockress could have given her some information. It is true that he had had no letters from his chief, but a nephew of Schadow's, who was a clerk in the Gough Square house, had had a hint dropped to him by his uncle that it was not improbable that the head of the house would, on his return, which would be soon, bring with him a wife, as he was supposed to be very much in love with a young French lady, a governess in a distinguished Russian family where he visited. Schadow junior communicated this intelligence to Dockress junior, who sat at the same desk with him, who communicated it to Dockress senior, who whistled, and, as soon as his son was out of hearing, muttered aloud that it was "a rum go."
"Rum" as it was, though, it was true. A short time afterwards Dockress received official intimation of the fact, and the same post brought the news to Mrs. Alick. Paul's note to his sister-in-law was very short. It simply said that she and Alexis would probably be surprised to hear that he was about to be married to Mdlle. Delille, a young French lady, whom he had met in society at St. Petersburg. They were to be married at once, and would shortly after set out for England, not, however, with the intention of remaining there. He infinitely preferred living abroad, so that he should merely return for the purpose of settling his business, and should then retire to the Continent for the rest of his life.
Alick Derinzy gave a great guffaw as his wife read out this epistle to him, and chaffed her in his ponderous way, referring to the counting of chickens before they were hatched, and the hallooing before you were out of the wood, and other apposite proverbs.
"That's rather a bust-up for your scheme, Gertrude," he said with a loud laugh, "old Paul going to marry; and he's just one of those fellows that have a large family late in life; and a neat chance forourPaul's coming in for any of the old boy's money. That game is u-p, Mrs. Derinzy."
But Mrs. Derinzy, though she looked serious at the news which the letter contained, and shook her head at her husband's speech, said there was no knowing what Time had in store for them, and they must wait and see.
They waited, and in due course they saw--Paul's wife, Mrs. Derinzy: a pretty, slight, fragile little woman, with large black eyes, olive complexion, and odd restless ways. Mrs. Alick set her down as "thoroughly French;" Alick spoke of her as a "rum little party;" but they neither of them saw much of her. Paul brought her to dine two or three times, and the women called upon each other, but the newly-married pair were so thoroughly occupied with theatre-goings, and opera-visitings and society-frequenting, that it was with the greatest difficulty they could be induced to find a free night during the month they stayed in town. London did not seem capable of producing enough pleasure or excitement for Paul Derinzy. He was like a boy in the ardour of his yearning for fresh amusement, he entered into everything with wild delight, and seemed as though he should never tire of taking his pretty little wife about, and what Alexis called "showing her off."
During that month the great house of Derinzy and Sons ceased to exist, and in the next issue of the great red book, thePost-Office Directory, the name which had been so respected and so highly thought of was not to be found. Certainly Paul Derinzy retained a share in its fortunes, but he sold the largest part of the business to Dockress and Schadow, whose friends came forth nobly to help them in the purchase, and it was under their joint names that the house was in future conducted.
Then Paul and his wife went away, and were only occasionally heard of. It had been their intention to travel about, and they were apparently carrying it out, for Paul's letters to Mrs. Alick, with whom he still corresponded, were dated from various places, and he could only give her vague addresses where to reply. They were passing the winter at Florence, when he wrote to his sister-in-law that a little daughter had been born to them, but that his wife had been in great peril, for some time her life had been despaired of, and even then, at the time of writing, she was seriously ill. Alick Derinzy guffawed again at this news, remarking that their Paul's nose was out of joint now, and no mistake. Their Paul, then a stalwart boy of four years old, who was playing about the room at the time, exclaimed, "No, my nose all right!" at the same time grasping that organ with his chubby hand; and Mrs. Derinzy checked her husband's unseemly mirth, and remarked that since his brother had married, it was more to their interest that his child should be a girl than a boy. There was an interval of six months before another letter arrived to say that Mrs. Paul remained very ill, that her constitution had received a shock which it was doubtful whether it would ever recover, but that the little girl was thriving well. Paul added that he was in treaty for a place on the Lake of Geneva of which he had heard, and that if it suited him the family would most probably settle down there. After another six months Mrs. Alick heard from her brother-in-law that they had settled on the Swiss lake, with a repetition of the statement that his wife was helplessly ill, and the little girl thriving apace. During the four succeeding years very nearly the same news reached the Alick Derinzys at the same intervals--Paul was still located in the Swiss chateau, his wife remained in the same state of illness, and his little girl still throve.
"No chance for our Paul," said Alexis Derinzy disconsolately.
"Our Paul" was growing into a fine boy, and his father gave himself much mental exercitation as to whether he could "stand the racket" of educating him at Eton or Harrow.
One evening a cab drove up to the door, and a gentleman alighted and asked for Mrs. Derinzy. Alick was, according to his usual practice, at the club, enjoying that pleasant hour's gossip so dear to married gentlemen who are kept rather tightly in hand at home, and which they relinquish with such looks of envy at the happy bachelors or more courageous Benedicks whom they leave behind. But Mrs. Alick was in her very pretty little boudoir, into which she desired the stranger might be shown.
He came in; a man who had probably been tall, but was now bent double, walking with a stick, and then making but slow progress; a man with snow-white hair and long beard of the same hue, wrapped from head to foot in a huge fur coat of foreign make. Mrs. Derinzy saw that he was a gentleman, but did not recognise him. It was not until he advanced to her and mentioned his name that she knew him for her brother-in-law, Paul. She received him very warmly, and he seemed touched and gratified, so far as lay in him. Where were his wife and his little daughter? she asked. They were--over there, in Switzerland, he said with an effort. He was alone, then, in London? He must come and stay with them. No; he had been in London three or four days. He came over on some special business, and he was about to return to the Continent the next day, but he did not like to go without having seen her. He fidgeted about while he stopped, and seemed nervously anxious to be off; but Mrs. Alick, with a woman's tact, began to ask him questions about his child, and he quieted down, and spoke of her with rapture. She was the joy of his soul, he said, the one bright ray in his life, of which, indeed, he spoke in very melancholy terms. Alick came home from his club in due course, and was as surprised as his wife had been at the alteration in Paul's appearance, and took so little pains to disguise his impressions, that Paul himself made allusion to his white hair and his bowed back, and said he had had trouble enough to have broken a much younger and stronger man. He did not say what the trouble was, and they did not like to ask him. Alick had thought it was pecuniary worry; that his brother had "dropped his money," as he phrased it. Mrs. Alick saw no reason to ascribe it to any such source. But she noticed that her brother-in-law said very little about his wife, and she felt certain that the marriage which had promised so brilliantly had turned out a disappointment, and that the shadow which darkened his life was of home creation.
Paul Derinzy bade adieu to his brother and his sister-in-law that night, and they never saw him again. About a month afterwards he wrote from Switzerland that his wife was dead, that he should give up the château on the lake, and travel for a time, taking the child with him. Ten years passed away, during which news of the travellers came but rarely to the residents in Brompton, who, indeed, thought but little of them. The ex-captain of dragoons had settled down into a quiet, whist-playing, military-club-frequenting fogey; Mrs. Derinzy managed him with as much tact as usual, and with rather a slacker rein; and young Paul, now eighteen years old, was just appointed to the Stannaries Office, when an event occurred which entirely changed the aspect of affairs. This was the elder Paul Derinzy's death, which was communicated to his brother by a telegram from Pau, where it happened. By this telegram Alick was bidden to come to Pau instantly, to take charge of Miss Derinzy, and to be present at the reading of the will. Alick went to Pau, and his wife went with him. They found Annette Derinzy--a tall girl of fourteen, "a little too foreign, and good deal too forward," Mrs. Derinzy pronounced her--prostrated with grief at her recent loss. And they were present at the reading of the will, under which they found themselves constituted guardians of the said Annette Derinzy, who inherited all her father's property, with the exception of a thousand a-year, which was to be paid to them for their trouble during their lives, and five thousand pounds legacy to their son Paul at his father's death. Their authority over Annette was to cease when she came of age at twenty-one, but up to that time they had the power of veto on any marriage engagement she might contract, and any defiance on her part was to be punished by the loss of her fortune, which was to be divided amongst certain charities duly set forth in the will.
"Only five thou. for our poor boy, and that not till we're dead! and Paul must have left over eighty thousand!" said Captain Derinzy to his wife, when they were in their own room at the hotel after the will had been read.
"Our Paul shall have the eighty thousand," said Mrs. Derinzy in reply.
"The devil he shall!" said the Captain. "Who will give it him?"
"The guardians of his wife!" said Mrs. Derinzy.