It is the end of August, and society has gone out of town. Sporting people have gone to Goodwood; and the Lawn, at the period of our story, as yet uninvaded by objectionable persons, promises to present, as it hitherto has always presented, aparterreof aristocratic beauty. There is no "limited mail" in these days; but they could tell you at Euston Square of seats for the North booked many days in advance. And there are no Cook's tourists; and yet it would seem impossible that the boats leaving Dover twice a day for the great continental routesvidCalais and Ostend, could possibly carry more passengers. That was before the contemptible German system ofbattueswas allowed among us, whendreib-jagdswere almost unknown in England, and when a day's shooting meant exercise, trouble, and skill, not warm corners and wholesale slaughter; but Purdays and Lancasters, though mere muzzle-loaders, did their work, and Grant's gaiters were to be found on most of the right sort throughout the English counties.
The physicians and the great surgeons have struck work--it is no good remaining in a place where there are no patients--and having delegated their practicepro tem. to some less fortunate brother--who devoutly prays that chance may bring some rich or celebrated person unexpectedly to town, then and there to be stricken with illness, and left in his, the substitute's, hands--they are away shooting in the Highlands, swarming up Swiss mountains, lounging at German Brunnen, but never losing the soft placid manner and the dulcet tone which seem to imbue their every speech and action with a certain professional air, as though they were saying, "Hum! ha! ye-es, certainly; show me the tongue, please--ah!" and wherever they may be, the scent of the hospital is over them still.
Passing through Edinburgh, on his way to his shooting in Aberdeenshire, Mr. Fleem, President of the College of Surgeons, gives up a week of his hard-earned holiday to the society of Sir Annis Thettick, the great Scotch operator, and the pair indulge in many a sanguinary colloquy; little Dr. Payne leaves Mrs. Payne to be escorted up and down thealléesof Baden-Baden by trim-waisted Prussian and Austrian officers, or by such of her compatriot acquaintances as she may find there (all of whom are too glad to pay court to so charming a woman), while he is closeted with Herr Doctor Von Glauber, Hof-Arzt to his Effulgency the reigning Duke of Schweinerei, with whom he exchanges the most confidential communications, resulting on both sides in a belief that the real knowledge of either of them is extremely limited.
In those charming courts and groves dedicated to the study and practice of the law there is also tranquillity, not to say stagnation, for the long vacation has commenced, and the Law is out of town.
Read the fact in the closed courts of Westminster Hall--in the Hall itself, no longer filled with the anxious faces of suitors, the flying forms of bewigged barristers, or fragrant with the sprinkled snuff of agitated attorneys, but now given up to marchings and counter-marchings of newly-fledged volunteers, who--it is the first year of the movement--are longing to be taking martial exercise in the wilds of Wimbledon or on the plains of Putney, but, deterred by the rain, are fain to put up with the large area of Westminster Hall, and to undergo the torture of the professional drill-sergeant before the eyes of a gaping and a grinning audience.
Read the fact in the closed oaks of every set of chambers, each door bearing its coffin-plate-like announcement that messages and parcels are to be left at the porter's lodge; in the sounds of revelry that proceed from the attorneys' offices, where the scrubs left in town are amusing themselves with effervescing drinks and negro minstrelsy, oblivious of executors, and administrators, and hereditaments; while the "chief" is at Bognor with his wife and children, the "Chancery" is geologising at Staffa, and the "Common-law" is living up at Laleham Ferry, and washing off all reminiscence of John Doe and Richard Roe in daily matutinal plunges off the bar at Penton Hook.
All the members of the Bar, great and small, are away. Heaven alone knows where the Great Seal may be hidden, but it is certain that the keeper of it and the Sovereign's conscience--a tall, straggling-whiskered, gray-haired gentleman--has been seen, with a wideawake hat on his head and a gun in his hand, "potting" rabbits on a Wiltshire common, and has been pointed out seated in a dog-cart at a little railway-station as the "Lar' Chance'lar" to the wondering bumpkins, who fully expected to see him in full-bottomed wig and gold-fringed robes, and who were consequently wofully disappointed, and thought his lordship of but "little 'count." Tocsin, the great gladiator, who wrestles with his professional opponents and flings them heavily, cross-buttocks the jury, and has been known, metaphorically, to give that peculiar British blow known as "one" to the judge himself--Tocsin, whose arrival at the Old Bailey (never appearing there unless specially retained) arouses interest in the languid ushers and door-porters, used up with constant criminal details, but sure of some excitement when Tocsin leads--Tocsin is at Broadstairs, swimming and walking with his boys during the day, and of an evening very much interested, and not unfrequently affected to tears, by the Minerva-Press novels, obtained from the little library, which he reads aloud to his wife. Mr. Serjeant Slink, leader at the Parliamentary Bar, whose professional life is passed in denouncing the aristocracy of this country as stifling all freedom of political opinion by threats or bribery, is staying with the Duke and Duchess of Potiphar at their villa on the Lake of Como; and Mr. Moss, of Thavies Inn, 'cutest and cleverest of criminal attorneys, is at Venice, occupying the moments which hisvalet de placeallows him to have to himself in working out the outline of the defence in a case of gigantic fraud, the trial of which is coming off next sessions, in his room at Danieli's Hotel.
Lethargy and languor in the public offices, where the chiefs are away on leave, and the juniors left in town appear, from the medical certificates they are sending in, to be suffering from every kind of mortal illness, and where the "immediate attention" promised to your communication becomes more vague and shadowy than ever; in merchants' establishments, where the clerks, finding it impossible to get "regularly away," compromise the matter by taking lodgings at Gravesend or in up-the-river villages, and running to and fro daily; in large shops, where the assistants bless the early-closing movement, and bound away on Saturday afternoon with an agility which argues well for their jumping many other things besides counters.
George Street, Hanover Square, is much too distinguished a quarter not to suffer under the general depression. There has not been a marriage at the church for six weeks; the rector is away at the Lakes; and the clerk has modified his responses, and is saving his voice until the return of those to whom it is worth his while to address himself. The beadle has laid by his gorgeous uniform, on week-days wears mufti, and on Sundays comes out in a kind of compromise, alternately airing the hat and the coat, but never appearing in both together. The pew-openers' untipped palms are grimier than ever, the regular congregation are absent, no strangers ask for seats, and the dust on the pews is an inch thick. No horsey-looking men, chewing toothpicks, and spitting refreshingly around, garnish the portals of Limmer's; the silver sand sprinkled over the doorsteps as usual is untrodden, save by the pumps of the one waiter, who knows no one is likely to come; and as weary as ever was Mariana in her moated grange, he lounges to the door, yawns, and lounges back, to cover his head with his napkin for fly-diverting purposes, and seeks refuge in sleep. The dentist is out of town; and the dentist's man has exchanged his striped jacket and his black trousers for a heather suit, specially recommended by the tailor for deer-stalking or grouse-shooting, clad in which, he sits during the daytime in the dining-room readingBell's Life, and at night, after delicately scenting himself with camphor procured from his master's drug-drawers, proceeds to some garden of public resort. The paper patterns, marked with mysterious numbers, and inscribed with the names of dukes and marquises, which hang in the shop of Stecknadel the tailor, have a thick coating of dust; for the noble customers whose fair proportions they represent have not had them in requisition for weeks past. Stecknadel is away at Boppard on the Rhine, where he has a very prettyterre, to which, if he could only get in his debts, he would retire, and some day become Baron Stecknadel, and live peacefully and prosperously for the rest of his life.
Equally, of course, the headless dummies in Madame Clarisse's showrooms are stripped of the fairy-like fabrics which cover them during the season, and stand up showing all their wire anatomy, or lie about in corners, unheeded. Madame is at Dieppe, and Daisy reigns temporarily in her stead. The staff is very much reduced, for there is little or nothing to do; and Daisy is enabled, very much to Paul Derinzy's delight, to get out much earlier and much more frequently than she could in the season, and the walks in Kensington Gardens occur pretty constantly, and are much prolonged. Daisy is glad of this too; for not only does her liking for Paul increase, but she knows he is very soon going away for his holiday, "down to his people in the West," and the idea of parting with him is not pleasant to her, and she likes to see as much of him as possible. Daisy has noticed that, with the absence of the great world from London, Paul has grown much bolder: he walks with her without showing any of that dreadful feeling of restraint which at one time galled her so much, is never fearful of being observed, and has more than once asked to be allowed to take her to dinner, to the theatre, or to some public gardens. This request Daisy has always steadily refused, and their meetings are confined to Kensington Gardens as heretofore, though she has permitted him to see her home to the corner of her street on several occasions.
One hot dusty afternoon Daisy is looking out of the showroom window into the deserted street--deserted save by a vagabond dog, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, who is furtively gliding about from one bit of shade to another, and hopelessly sniffing at those places where he remembers puddles used to be in the bygone time, but where, alas, there are none now--when she hears steps upon the stairs, and turning round, recognises Miss Orpington, one of their best customers. With Miss Orpington is her father, Colonel Orpington; and looking at them as they enter the room, Daisy thinks within herself that a more stylish-looking father and daughter could scarcely be found in England. Both are tall, and slim, and upright; both have regular features, with the same half-haughty, half-weary expression; both have small hands and feet. Miss Orpington is going to be married to a Yorkshire baronet with money. She has been staying in the same house with him in Scotland, and is on her way to a house in Kent, where he is invited. She has stopped a day or two in London on her way through to get "some gowns and things." She is always wanting gowns and things, and spends a very large sum of money yearly.
Colonel Orpington does not very much mind how much she spends. Through his wife, who was the daughter of his family solicitor, and who died in childbirth a year after their marriage, he had a very large income, every farthing of which he carefully spent. He had nothing to do with the turf; hunted but little, and when he did, generally found other men to mount him; never joined in the afternoon rubbers at the club, and only interested himself in them to the extent of an occasional small bet; kept a good but small stud; had no permanent country place; and during the season entertained well, but neither frequently nor lavishly, and yet managed to get through eight thousand a year.
How? Well, the Colonel had his tastes. Though turned fifty years of age, he had not run to flesh; his figure was yet trim and elegant, and his face handsome and eminently "bred"-looking. His hair was still jet-black; and though his moustache, long, sweeping, and carefully trained, was unmistakably grizzled, the colour rather added to the picturesqueness of his appearance. And the Colonel liked to be thought handsome, and elegant, and picturesque; for he was devoted to the sex, and had but little care in life beyond how best to please her who for the time being was the object of his devotion.
And yet Colonel Orpington was never seen in any suspicioussolitude à deux, nor even in the loose-talking, easy-going society in which he mixed was his name ever coupled with any woman's. Old comrades and contemporaries might be seen lurking at the back of shady little boxes on the pit-tier of the theatre, and addressing a presumed form in the corner facing the stage, of which nothing could be seen but a white gleaming arm, a fan, and an opera-glass; but when the Colonel patronised the drama, which was very seldom, he always went with a party among whom were his daughter and his sister, who kept house for him. Sons of old comrades, and other young men with whom he had a casual acquaintance, might lounge across the rails of the Row to speak to the "strange women" on horseback who were just beginning to put in an appearance there; but the Colonel, when he passed them, whether Miss Orpington were with him or not, was always looking straight before him between his horse's ears, and never showed the slightest recognition of their presence. Nor, though living in days when to love your neighbour's wife was a rule pretty generally followed, was Colonel Orpington's name ever mixed up with any of those society intrigues the ignoring of which in public, and the discussion of which in private, affords so much delight to well-bred people. Of good appearance, of perfect manners, and with a voice and address which were singularly insinuating, the Colonel might have availed himself of manybonnes fortuneswhich would not have fallen in the way of men younger and less discreet; but he purposely neglected the opportunities offered, and, while being the intimate and trusted companion of many of his friends' wives, sisters, and daughters, was the lover of none.
And yet he was devoted to the sex, and spent a great deal of money! Yes, and was very frequently absent from his family. Amongst the property which the Colonel inherited from his wife were some slate-quarries and lead-mines in South Wales, which seemed to require a vast amount of personal supervision. If he looked after the rest of his estate with equal fidelity, he must have been a pattern landlord; for he would leave town in the height of the season, or give up any pleasant engagement, when he received one of these summonses. When Miss Orpington was a child, she used to tease her father about "dose 'orrid quarry-mines;" but it was noticed that after she had put away childish things, amongst which might be enumerated innocence, she never referred to the subject. Nobody ever did palpably refer to it, though there was a good deal of sniggering about it in the Colonel's clubs, and Bobus, known as Badger Bobus from his low sporting tastes, was asked out to dinner for a fortnight on the strength of his having said that he couldn't make out how old Orpington always went into South Wales by the Great Northern Railway.
Miss Orpington languidly expresses her pleasure at seeing Daisy.
"You are so fresh, Miss Stafford, and all that kind of thing. Of course I know Madame Clarisse's taste is excellent; but I confess I like a younger person's ideas."
Daisy bows, and says nothing, but applies herself to showing her wares, which the young lady turns over and discourses upon. Colonel Orpington, standing by and caressing his grizzled moustache, says nothing also. Nothing aloud, at least; only someone standing very close might have seen him draw in his breath, and mutter behind his hand,
"Jove! Clarisse was right."
Miss Orpington is large in her notions of autumn costume, and Daisy shows her a vast number of "pretty things" which she would like to order, but is somewhat checked by the paternal presence, in itself a novelty in her negotiations with her milliner. But, deferring to the paternal presence, as to "Should she?" and "Did he think she might?" and receiving nothing but favourable replies, she gives her fancy scope, and makes such of the workwomen as were always retained think that the season had suddenly and capriciously recommenced.
What had induced the Colonel to accompany his daughter? He never had done so before, and on this occasion he says nothing, never looks at the things exhibited, or the patterns after which they are to be made. What does he look at? Miss Orpington knows, perhaps, when, following the earnest gaze of his eyes, she makes a littlemoue, and slightly shrugs her shoulders, taking no further notice until they are in the street; then she says:
"Do you think that girl pretty, papa?"
The Colonel is in an abstracted state, and pauses for a minute before he replies,
"What girl, Constance?"
"We have not seen so many that you need ask," says Miss Orpington, with a melancholy glance at the deserted streets; "the girl who attended to me just now, at Clarisse's."
"I was thinking of something else at the time, and really did not notice her particularly, my dear," says the Colonel, "but she appeared to me to be a very respectable young person."
Miss Orpington gives her little shoulder-shrug, and looks round curiously at her father; but he is staring straight before him, and they walk on without speaking further, until just as they are passing Limmer's, when he says, half to himself, "That fellow will do!" and then to her,
"I want to send a message to the club, Constance. If you'll walk quietly on, I'll overtake you in an instant. Hi! here!"
The man to whom he calls, and who is hanging about the doorway of the hotel, is one of those Mercuries who have now been superseded by the Commissionaires, but who in those days were the principal media for good and evil communication in the metropolis. In the season this fellow wears a dingy red jacket like the cover of an oldPost Office Directory; but in the dead time of year he discards his gaiety of apparel, and dons a seedy long drab waistcoat with black sleeves. He crosses the road at once at the Colonel's call, and stands on the kerb, touching his broken hat, and waiting for his orders.
"Look here," says the Colonel, as soon as his daughter is out of earshot; "go up to Clarisse's--the milliner's, you know, opposite the church--ask to see the young woman who just attended to Miss Orpington, and tell her you have been sent to say she must be certain to send the things at the time promised. Take notice of her, so that you will know her again; then wait about until she comes out, follow her, see whom she speaks to and where she goes, and come to Batt's Hotel in Dover Street and ask for Colonel Orpington. You understand?"
"Right you are, Colonel!" says the man, pocketing the half-crown which the Colonel hands to him; then he touches his shabby hat again, and starts off.
"Left her walking up and down in Kensington Gardens among the trees near the keeper's cottage, did he?" says Colonel Orpington to himself as he strikes into the Park about five o'clock, and hurries off in the direction indicated. "Had not spoken to anyone, but seemed as if she were waiting for somebody, eh? Plainly an assignation! So my young friend is not so innocent as Clarisse would have me believe. What a fool she was to think it, and what a fool I was to believe her! However, I may as well see it through, for the girl is marvellously pretty, and has a something about her which is extraordinarily attractive--even to me!"
As he nears the place to which he has been directed, he slackens his speed, and looks round him from time to time. The first touch of autumn has fallen on the grand old trees, and occasionally some leaves come circling down noiselessly on to the brown turf. Away at the end of yon vista a slight mist is rising, noticing which the Colonel prudently buttons his coat over his chest and shudders slightly. Half-a-dozen children are romping about, rolling among the leaves that have already fallen, and shrieking with delight; but the Colonel takes no heed of them. Just then the figures of a man and woman walking very slowly come in sight. The Colonel looks at them for a moment, using his natty double-eyeglass for the purpose; then stands quietly behind one of the large elm-trees watching the pair as they pass. Her arm is through his, on which she is leaning heavily; their faces are turned towards each other, each wearing a grave earnest expression. As they pass the tree behind which the Colonel stands, their faces approach, and their lips meet for an instant, then they walk on as before.
The Colonel drops the natty double-eyeglass from his nose, and replaces it in his waistcoat-pocket. As he turns to walk away, he says to himself:
"Not a very pleasant position that! However, I've learned what I wanted to know. The girl has a lover, as one might have expected. I think I know the man too. To be sure! we elected him at the Beaufort the other day--Derinzy, son of the man who put the Jew under the pump at Hounslow. A good-looking youngster too, and in some Government office, I think. Well, I suppose it will be the old story--youth against cheque-book. But in this case, from the young lady's general style, I think I should back the latter!"
Town was at its dreariest; the little people in Camden Town and Hackney had followed the great people in Belgravia and Tyburnia, by going away; only they went to Southend or Margate instead of Scotland or Biarritz. It was the last possible time of the year at which one would imagine festivity could take place; and yet from the aspect of No. 20, Adalbert Crescent, Navarino Road, Dalston, it was evident that festivity was intended. The general servant of the establishment had washed the upper half of her face, and hooked the lower half of her gown--an extraordinary occurrence which meant something. The fishmonger had sent in a lobster, and half a newspaper--folded in cornucopia fashion--full of shrimps; the à-la-mode-beef house had been ransacked for the least-stony piece of cold meat which it possessed; and from the greengrocer had been obtained a perfect grove of salad and cress. Looking at these preparations, Miss Augusta Manby might well feel within herself a certain sentiment of pride, and a consciousness that Adalbert Crescent was equal to the occasion.
Miss Augusta Manby had been a workwoman at Madame Clarisse's; but she had long left that patrician establishment, and started on her own account. The name of her late employer figured under her own on the brass plate which adorned her door; and this recommendation, and her own talent in reducing bulging waists, and "fitting" generally obstinate figures, had procured for her a vast amount of patronage in the clerk-inhabited district where she had pitched her tent.
In the fulness of delight at her success, Miss Manby had taken advantage of the occasion of her birthday to summon her friends to rejoice with her at a little festive gathering, and the advent of those friends she was then awaiting.
"I think it will all do very well," she said to herself, after surveying the preparations; "and I am sure it ought to go off nicely. I should have been afraid to ask Fanny Stafford if Bella Merton and her brother had not been coming; but she has quite West End manners, and he is very nice-looking and very well-behaved. It's a pity I could not avoid asking Gus; but he would have been sure to have heard of it; and then, if he had been left out, there would have been a pretty to-do."
A ring at the bell stopped Miss Manby's soliloquy, and she rushed to the glass to "put herself tidy," as she phrased it. There was no need for this performance in Miss Manby's case, as the glass reflected a pretty little face of the snub-nose, black-eyes, white-teeth, and oiled-hair order, and a very pretty little figure, which the owner took care should be well, though not expensively, got up.
The arrivals were Miss Bella Merton--a young lady who officiated as clerk at Mr. Kammerer's, the photographer's in Regent Street, kept the appointment ledger, entered the number of copies ordered, and received the money from the sitters--and her brother, a book-keeper in Repp and Rumfitt's drapery establishment.
"So good of you, Bella dear, to be the first!" said Miss Manby, welcoming a tall dashing-looking young woman, who darted into the room after the half-cleansed servant had broken down in announcing "Miss Merting."--"And you too, Mr. John; I scarcely thought you would have taken the trouble to come from the West End to this outlandish place."
Mr. John, as she called him, who was a tall well-built young man, dressed in a black frock coat, waistcoat, and trousers, relieved by an alarmingly vivid-blue necktie, merely bowed his acknowledgments; but his sister, who had thrown off a coquettish little black-silk cloak, and what was known amongst her friends as a "duck of a bonnet," and who was then smoothing her hair before the one-foot-square looking-glass over the chimney-piece, said:
"My dear Augusta, what nonsense it is! we should be thankful to escape from that hot dusty town to this--well, really, this rural retreat. And as for coming early, there's nothing doing now at the West, so that one can leave when one likes."
Miss Augusta Manby then took upon herself to remark that that was one compensation for her exile from the realms of fashion. All seasons, she remarked, were the same at Dalston, where people had new clothes when the old ones were worn out, and never studied times or seasons.
"And now tell me, dear, who are coming?" said Bella Merton, while her brother John sat in the window-seat, and tried to derive a gleam of satisfaction from the inspection of the fashion-plates inLa Belle Assemblée; "of course that dear delightful old Gus--and who else?"
"I have asked Fanny Stafford, and she has promised to come."
"No! that is fun!" said Bella Merton, laughing.
"And Mr. Burgess----"
"No! that's better still!" said Bella, laughing more heartily: "what!ourMr. Burgess?"
"Of course. Did he not tell you?"
"Not one single word, dear. But of course I understand why!" and the young lady relapsed into fits of merriment.
"You have all the joke to yourself at present, Bella," said John Merton, looking up from his fashion-book.
"And you won't have any of it, so far as I can see, during any part of the evening, my poor old John!" said his sister.
"I'm sorry I can't understand your West End wit, Bella dear," said their hostess, with some asperity.
"You will see it all in a minute," said Bella, striving to compose her countenance. "Burgess has been raving-mad in love with Fanny Stafford, whom he has only seen for an instant, ever since Mr. Kammerer gave him her photograph to tint. My brother John, here, of course fell over head and ears directly he saw her; and there's another man of a different kind, with no end of money and position and all that, about whom I must say nothing. So much for Fanny Stafford. But what's to become of you and me, Augusta? There's nobody left for us but old Gus."
"What's that you are saying about old Gus?" said a fat jolly voice, belonging to a fat jolly man, of about forty years of age, who entered the room at the moment.
This was Augustus Manby, the hostess's brother, a tea-taster attached to an establishment in Mincing Lane--a convivial soul, and a thorough vulgarian.
"Saying!" said Bella Merton, whose two hands he was wringing, after having given his sister a smacking kiss; "that we should have no one but you to flirt with, all the other men would be absorbed by Fanny Stafford."
"Well, they are welcome so far as I am concerned," said plain-spoken Gus. "She's a nice girl, Fanny; but I don't like them red, and I do like more of them; and that's the fact."
"Hush! do be quiet," said his sister, as the bell sounded again; and the next minute Fanny Stothard entered the room.
She looked so lovely, that Gus almost audibly recalled his opinion. The exercise had given a colour to her cheeks and a brilliancy to her eyes. Her dress fitted her to perfection, and there was an indefinable something about her which stamped her superiority to those among whom she then was. She was warmly welcomed by all, and had scarcely gone through their greetings when Mr. Burgess joined and completed the little party.
Mr. Burgess was a small consumptive-looking young man, principally remarkable for the length of his hair and the smallness of his cravat. Believing in his destiny as an "arteeste," he had originally entered as a student at the Royal Academy; but after severe objurgations from the authorities there, had subsided into colouring pictures for the photographers, by which he realised a decent income. He entered the room with a bound suggestive of hope and joy; but on seeing Fanny he sighed deeply, and abandoned himself to misery.
Then they all bustled about, and the cloth was laid, and the provisions produced, and the half-cleansed servant appeared periodically, staggering under large pewter vessels containing malt liquor; and the gentlemen pressed the ladies to eat and to drink; and the ladies would not be persuaded without a great deal of pressing on the gentlemen's part; and so the meal was gone through with much giggling and laughter, but without any regular talk.
That began when the hostess had fetched from a cupboard, where they were imbedded in layers of brown-paper patterns and bygone fashion-books, and watched over by an armless papier-mâchè idol, two bottles of spirits; and when the gentlemen had brewed themselves mighty jorums of grog, and helped the ladies to delicate wine-glasses of the same beverage. And thus it commenced:
"Things must be dull with you now at Clarisse's, Fanny dear?" said the hostess.
"Dull!" said Fanny: "I never knew anything like it. I don't mean written orders from the country, of course; but we only had one customer in our place the whole of last week."
"What will you bet me, Fanny," said Bella Merton, "that I don't tell you that customer's name?"
"Why, how can you possibly know it? She----"
"I don't speak of a she! I mean a he," said Bella, laughing.
"Hes ain't milliners' customers," said Mr. Burgess, with a titter.
"Ain't they?" said John Merton, with a savage expression on his good-looking face; "but they are sometimes, worse luck!"
"My customer, at all events, was a lady," said Fanny, rather disapproving of this turn of the conversation.
"Yes; but she was accompanied by a gentleman," said Bella, still laughing; "and, as John says, gentlemen have no right in milliners' showrooms."
"I suppose that even Mr. John Merton would not object to a father's accompanying his daughter to a milliner's showroom?" said Fanny, beginning to be piqued.
"Mr. John Merton merely spoke generally, Miss Stafford," said John, with a bow. "He would not have taken the liberty to apply his observation to any particular case."
"This is perfectly delicious!" cried Bella Merton, clapping her hands. "I knew I should soon set you all by the ears. But we have wandered from my original proposition. Can I, or can I not, tell you the name of the gentleman who came with his daughter, as you say, to your place last week?"
"I daresay you can," said Fanny Stothard, "though how you gained your information it would be impossible for me to say."
"Don't tell her, Miss Stafford," said John Merton; "don't help her in the least degree. It's scarcely a fair subject of conversation; at least, it's one which I'm sure has no interest for me."
"Was he a nice cross old dear?" said his sister; "and didn't he like to hear about the fine gentleman that admired Fanny?"
John Merton looked so black at this remark, that Mr. Burgess thought it best to cut into the conversation. So he said:
"But you haven't yet told us the name of the gentleman. Miss Merton."
"Haven't I?" said Bella; "well, I'll be as good as my word. Colonel Orpington. Am I right, Fanny?"
"I daresay you are. Miss Orpington's father came with her. What his title may be I haven't the least idea."
"But he knows what your title is, dear, and accords it to you quite publicly."
"And what title does he give Miss Stafford, pray?" asked John Merton, angrily.
"That of the prettiest girl in London!"
"I never heard a swell go so near the truth," growled John, half pleased and half annoyed.
"Don't you think it is almost time for you to speak a little more plainly, Bella?" asked Fanny. "How do you know this Colonel Orpington, and what has he been saying about me?"
"ThisColonel Orpington, indeed!" cried Miss Merton. "My dear,thisColonel Orpington is simply one of the best men of the day, extremely rich, and--well, you know--one of those nice fellows who are liked by everybody. He came into our place the other day, and when I looked up from my desk in the front room, where I was writing a private letter--for I had nothing else to do--I saw him; and I thought to myself, 'I know you, Colonel Orpington! I've seen you about often. So you've come for a sitting, have you? Won't Mr. Kammerer be wild to think you should have come when he was out of town!' However, he came straight towards me; and he took off his hat, like a gentleman as he is, and he said, 'There is a portrait in a frame outside the door which strikes me as a wonderful example of photography, of which I am a connoisseur.' I knew what he meant at once, bless you; but I said, 'You mean the gentleman in the skull-cap and the long beard--Professor Gilks?' He muttered something about Professor Gilks--I daren't say what--but then said No; he meant the coloured female head--was it for sale? I told him I could not answer him without referring to Mr. Kammerer, who was at Ramsgate. The Colonel begged me to telegraph to him, and he would call next day. He did call next day, took the photograph, and paid twenty guineas for it, which was a good thing for Mr. Kammerer."
"Very likely," burst in John Merton; "but a bad thing for art, and decency, and----"
"Don't distress yourself, John! Very likely it was all you say; but, you see, Mr. Kammerer is not here for you to pitch into, and Fanny couldn't help her portrait being bought by an admirer. Oh, he was an admirer, Fanny; for when I tied it up for him, he said out, 'It's lovely, but it doesn't do justice to the original.' And when I asked him did he know the original, he said he thought he had had that honour. And so it's no good your bursting into virtuous indignation."
Her brother shrugged his shoulders and was silent; but Fanny Stothard said:
"Don't you think this joke has gone far enough? Augusta and Mr. Burgess here are sitting in wild astonishment, as well they may be. Let us change the conversation for the few minutes before we break up."
Late that night Fanny Stothard sat on the side of her bed in her room in South Molton Street, her hands clasped behind her head, her body gently swaying to and fro as she pondered over all she had heard that evening. On the table lay a letter from Paul Derinzy. It was the second she had had, and he had not been away from London five days. The first she had torn at eagerly and devoured its contents at once; this lay unopened.
"Very rich, that woman said," she muttered, "and a great man in his way. Fancy his buying the portrait, and after only seeing me once! That was very nice of him. Not in the least old-looking, and everybody likes him, Bella said. What a funny thing his recognising that photograph, and---- How horrible the journey home was to-night, and what detestable people in the omnibus!--such pushing and tramping on one's feet, and--I had no idea of that! I thought he looked hard at me once or twice, but I never imagined that he took any particular notice. Colonel Orpington! I shall look out his name in theCourt Guideto-morrow, when I get to George Street, and see all about him. Had the honour of knowing me, he told Bella Merton! Ugh! how sick I am of this room, and how wearied of this life! Ah well, Paul's letter will keep till to-morrow; I'm sure I know what it's about. That was really very nice about the portrait! I wonder when Colonel Orpington will come back to town?"
Then she frowned a little as she said, "What could have made that young man, Bella's brother, so disagreeable about all that? He couldn't possibly--and yet I don't know. He looked so earnestly at me, and spoke so strongly about that business of the portrait, that I have half an idea he resented it on my behalf. What impertinence! And yet he meant merely to show his regard for me. How dreadfully in earnest he seemed! And Paul too! I shall have a difficulty in managing them all, I see that clearly."
It does not matter much to George Wainwright whether London is empty or full. His books, his work, and his healthful play go on just the same in winter and summer, in spring and autumn. He only knows it is the season by the fact of seeing more people in the streets, more horses and carriages in the Park across which he strides to his home; and when other men go away on leave, he remains at the office without the least desire to change the regular habits of his life. He has a splendid constitution, perfectly sound, and unimpaired by excess of any description; can do any amount of work without its having any influence on him; and never had need to go away "on medical certificate," as is the case with so many of his brethren at the Stannaries Office.
There is a decidedly autumnal touch in the air as it plays round George Wainwright, striding across the Park this October morning. There is sunshine, but it is thin and veneered, and very unlike the glorious summer article; looks as if it had lost strength in its struggle with the fog which preceded it, and as though it would make but a poor fight against the mist which would come creeping up early in the afternoon. But few leaves remain on the trees, and they are yellow and veinous, and swirl dismally round and round in their descent to the moist earth, where their already fallen comrades are being swept into heaps, and pressed down into barrows, and wheeled away by the gardeners. The ordinarily calm waters of the Serpentine are lashed into miniature waves, and the pleasure-boats have vanished from its surface, as have the carriages from the Drive and the horses from the Row. Only one solitary equestrian stands out like a speck in the distance; for it is Long Vacation still, and the judges and the barristers, those unvarying early riders and constant examples of the apparently insurmountable difficulty of combining legal lore with graceful equitation, have not yet returned to town.
Ten o'clock strikes from the Horse Guards clock as George walks under the archway, and makes his way across to the little back street where the Stannaries Office is situated. Always punctual, he is more particular than ever just now, for all the others of any standing are away; and George was perfectly aware, from long experience, that if someone responsible was not there to look after the junior clerks, those young gentlemen would not come at all. As it was, he finds himself the first arrival, and has changed his coat and rung for his letters, for even the messengers get lax and careless at this time of year--when the door opens and Mr. Dunlop enters, bringing with him a very strong flavour of fresh tobacco, and not stopping short in the popular melody which he is humming to say good-day until he has arrived at the end of the verse.
"'And he cut his throat with a pane of glass, and stabbed his donkey ar-ter!'" sings Mr. Dunlop, very much prolonging the last note. "That's what I call an impressive ending to a tragic ballad!--Goodmorning, Mr. Wainwright! I'm glad to see you here in good time for once, sir, at all events."
"Billy, Billy, if you were here a little earlier yourself, you wouldn't be pitched into so constantly."
"Perhaps not, sir, though 'pitched into' is scarcely a phrase to apply to a gentleman in Her Majesty's Civil Service. However, my position is humble, and I must demean myself accordingly. I am a norphan, sir, a norphan, and have no swell parents to stay with in the country like Mr. Derinzy, whose remarkably illegible and insignificant handwriting I recognise on this letter which Hicks has brought in for you."
"Paul's hand, by Jove!" says George, "and this other one is Courtney's, the chief's."
George opens the smaller letter, and emits a short whistle as he glances through its contents. The whistle and the expression of George's face are not lost upon Billy Dunlop, who says:
"Dear old person going to make it three months' leave, this year, instead of two? or perhaps not coming back at all, but sends address where his salary will find him?"
"On the contrary, he's coming back at once; he will be on duty to-morrow."
"By Jove! and he's not been away six weeks yet. The poet was right, sir. 'He stabbed his donkey arter!' There was nothing else left for him to do."
"But," says George, laughing, "he says he thinks he shall go away to Brighton in November, and advises me, if I want any leave, to take it now, that I may be back when he goes."
"What an inexpressible old ruffian! What does he say about my leave?"
"Not a word. What could he say, Billy? You've had all your leave ages ago."
Mr. Dunlop, who has retired into the sanctuary behind the washing-screen, makes a rapid reappearance at these words, and says hurriedly:
"I thought so. I thought that that pleasant month of March would be the only portion of the year allotted to me for recreation. March, by George! Why, Ettrick, Teviotdale, and all the rest of them put together, are not worth speaking about. It seems a year ago. I can only recollect it because it was so beastly cold I was obliged to spend nearly all the time in bed. That's a nice way for a man to enjoy his holiday! While you fellows are cutting about, and---- Hollo! what's the matter with G.W.? He looks as if he were rapidly preparing himself for his father's asylum. Some bad news from P.D., I suppose."
These last remarks of Mr. Dunlop's are based upon his observation of George Wainwright's face, the expression of which is set and serious.
"Hold on with your chaff for a minute, Billy," he says, looking up. "Paul is writing on business, and I want just to get hold of it as I go along."
So Mr. Dunlop thinks he will do a little official work; and having selected a sheet of foolscap with "Office of H.M. Stannaries" lithographed on it, fills in the date in a very bold and flowing hand (the gentlemen of the Stannaries Office always boasted that they were not "mere clerks," and that their penmanship "didn't matter"), then takes out his penknife, and begins adjusting the toilet of his nails.
Meanwhile George Wainwright plods his way with difficulty through Paul's letter where the writing is so small and the lines so close together, and his brows become more contracted and his face more set and stern as he proceeds. This is what he reads:
"The Tower, Beachborough.
"DEAR OLD MAN,--I have so much writing at that confounded shop--don't grin, now: I can see your cynical old under-lip shooting out at the statement--that I thought I'd give my pen a holiday as well as myself; and indeed I should not favour you with a sight of that 'bowld fist' which so disgusts that old beast Branwhite--saw his name in thePostas having been present at the Inverness gathering, hanging on to swells as usual--if there had not been absolute occasion.
"By Jove? what a tremendously long sentence that is! Rather broken-backed and weak in the knees too, eh? Don't seem to hang well together? Rather a 'solution of continuity,' as they call it, isn't there? Never mind, you'll understand what I mean. You see, my dear old George, I don't know whether it is because I'm bored by being in the country--and a fellow who is accustomed to town life must necessarily hate everything else, and find it all horribly slow and dreary--but the fact is, that instead of my leave doing me good, and setting me up, and all that kind of thing, I find myself utterly depressed and wretched, and nothing like half so well or so jolly as when I came down here.
"I thought I should go out boating and swimming and riding, and generally larking; and instead of that I find myself sitting grizzling over my pipe, and wondering what on earth I'm to do until evening, and how I shall get through the time after dark until I can go to bed.
"You would go blazing away at your old books, or your writing, or your music; but I'm not in that line, old boy. I haven't got what people call 'resources'--in any way, by Jove! tin, or anything else. I want to be amused, and I don't get it here, and that's all about it.
"You see, the truth is--and what's the good of having a fellow for your pal, if you can't speak the truth to him, and what people in the play call 'unbosom yourself,' and so on?--the truth is, our household here is most infernally dull. I hadn't seen any of them for so long, that they all came upon me like novelties; and they're so deuced original, that they would be most interesting studies, if they did not happen to be one's own people, don't you see, and that takes all the humour out of the performance. There's my governor, for instance, is the most wonderful party! If he were anybody else's governor he'd be quite good fun enough for me to render the place sufficiently agreeable. I don't think I should want any greater amusement than seeing him go yawning about the house and through the village, bored out of his life, and wishing everything at the devil. He seemed to pluck up a bit when I first came down, and wanted to know all the news about town, and talked about this fellow and that fellow--I knew the names well enough, and had met a good many of the people; but when we came to compare notes, I found that the governor was inquiring about the fathers of the fellows I knew--fellows with the same names, you understand; and when I explained this to him, and told him that most of his pals were dead or gone under, don't you know, and that their sons reigned in their stead, he cut up rather rough, and said he didn't know what the world was coming to, and that young men weren't half as well brought-up nowadays as they were in his time. Funny idea that, wasn't it? As though we could help these old swells going under! Fact is--I don't like to confess it, and would not to anybody but you, George--but since the governor has got off the main line of life they have shunted him into the siding for fogeydom, and there's not much chance of his coming out again.
"I find a great change in my mother too. I've spoken to you so often about all these domesticities, that I don't mind gossiping to you now. It's an immense relief to me. I feel if I had not someone to confide in, I should blow up. Well, you know, my mother was always the best man in our household, and managed everything according to her own will; but then she had a certain tact andsavoir faire, a way of ruling us all that no one could find fault with; and though we grumbled inwardly, we never took each other into confidence, or combined against the despotism. I find that's all altered now. Either she has lost tact, or we have lost patience--a little of both, perhaps; but, at all events, her attempts at rule and dictation are very palpable and very pronounced, and our ripeness for revolt is no longer concealed. In point of fact, the one thing which the governor and I have in common is our impatience of the female thrall, and if ever we combine, it will be to pass the Salic law.
"And apropos of that--rather neatly expressed, I find that is--there is another female pretender to power--my cousin Annette; you have heard me speak of her as a ward of my people's, and resident with them. She has grown into a fine young woman, though her manners are decidedly odd. I suppose this is country breeding: said as much to the governor, who made a very odd face and changed the subject. Whether he thought it the height of impudence in me to suppose that anyone who had had the advantage of studying him daily could have country manners, or whether there was any other reason, I don't know.
"One thing there can be no doubt of, and that is, that I am always being throwntête-à,-têtewith this young woman, principally, as I imagine, by my mother's connivance. This might have been amusing under other circumstances, for, as I said before, she is remarkably personable and nice--not in my line, but still a very fine young woman; but, situated as I am, I do not avail myself in the slightest degree of the opportunities offered.
"Nor, I am bound to say, does Annette. She sits silent, and sometimes actually sullen. She is a most extraordinary girl, George; I can't make her out a bit. Sometimes she won't speak for hours, sometimes won't even come down amongst us, and---- There is something deuced odd in all this! I wish I had your clear old head here to scrutinise matters with me, and help me in forming a judgment on them.
"You know what I refer to just above, about 'under other circumstances?' Certain interview in Kensington Gardens, with certain party that you happened to witness. Don't you recollect? Oh Lord, George, if you knew what an utterly gone 'coon I am in that quarter, you would pity me. No, you wouldn't! What's the use of talking to such a dried-up old file as you about such things? I don't believe you were ever in love in your life, ever felt the smallest twinge of what those stupid fools the poets call the 'gentle passion.' Gentle, by Jove! it's anything but gentle with me--upsets me frightfully, takes away all my sleep, and worries me out of my life. I swear to you, that now I am separated from her, I don't know how to live without her, and wonder how I ever got on before I knew her. When I think I'm far away from everybody, on the cliffs or down by the sea, I find myself holloing out aloud, and stamping my foot, for sheer rage at the thought that so much more time must go by before I can see her again. I told you it was a strong case, George, when you spoke to me about it; but I had no idea then that it was so strong as it is, or that my happiness was half so much bound up in her."
There was a space here, and the conclusion of the letter, from the appearance of the ink, had evidently been written at a different time.
"I left off there, George, thinking I might have something else to say to you later; and so I have, but of a very different kind from what I imagined.
"I have had a tremendous scene with my mother. She has given up hinting, and spoken out plainly at last. It appears that her whole soul is set upon my marrying my cousin Annette. This is the whole and sole reason of their living out of town, and of the poor governor being expatriated from the Pall Mall pavement and the gossip he loves so well. It appears that Annette is an heiress--in rather a large way too, will have no end of money--and that my poor dear mother, determined to secure her for me, has been hiding down here in this horrible seclusion, in order that the girl may form no 'detrimental' acquaintance of youths who might be likely to cut me out! Not very flattering to me, is it? But still it was well meant, poor soul!
"Now, you know, George, this won't do at all. If I entered into this plan for a moment, I should have to give up that other little affair at once;and nothing earthly would make me do that!Besides, I do not care for Annette; and as to her money, that would be deuced little good to me, if However, one goes with the other, so we needn't say any more about it.
"Of course, I fought off at once--pleaded Annette's bad state of health--she is ill, often keeps her room, and has to have a nurse entirely given up to her--said we were both very young, and asked for time--but all no good. My mother was very strong on the subject; and the governor, who sees a chance of his jailership being put an end to, and of his getting back to haunts of civilisation, backed her up with all his might, which is not much, poor old boy!
"So all I could do was to say that I never did anything without your advice, and to suggest that you should be asked down here at once. My mother wouldn't have it at first, until I said she feared you were a gay young dog, who would make running with Annette to my detriment; and then I told her what a quiet, solemn, old-fashioned old touch you really were, and then she consented. So, dear old man, you're booked and in for it. I really do want your counsel awfully, though I only thought of making you a scapegoat when I first suggested your visit. But now I am looking forward to it with the greatest anxiety from day to day. Come at once. You can easily arrange about your leave--come, and help me in this fix.But recollect, don't attempt to break off the acquaintance between me and that young lady, for that would be utterly useless!God bless you. Come at once.
"Yours ever, P.D."
George Wainwright reads this letter through twice attentively, and the frown deepens on his forehead. Then he folds it up and places it in his breast-pocket, and remains for ten minutes, slowly stroking his beard with his hand, and pondering the while. Then he looks up, and says:
"Billy, I'm thinking of taking the chief's advice, and going for a little leave."
"Oh, certainly," says Mr. Dunlop; "don't mind me, I beg. Leave the whole work of the department on my shoulders, pray. You'll find I'm equal to the occasion, sir; and perhaps in some future time, when I have 'made by force my merit known'--when the Right Honourable William Dunlop is First Lord of the Treasury, has clutched the golden keys, and shaped the whisper of the Throne into saying in the ear of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 'Put W. D. on the pension list for ten thou.'--I may thank you for having given me the opportunity of distinguishing myself!"