Geoffrey Ludlow was in his way a recognisant and a grateful man, grateful for such mercies as he knew he enjoyed; but from never having experienced its loss, he was not sufficiently appreciative of one of the greatest of life's blessings, the faculty of sleep at will. He could have slept, had he so willed it, under the tremendous cannonading, thefeu-d'enfer, before Sebastopol, or while Mr. Gladstone was speaking his best speech, or Mr. Tennyson was reading aloud his own poetry; whenever and wherever he chose he could sleep the calm peaceful sleep of an infant. Some people tell you they are too tired to sleep--that was never the case with Geoffrey; others that their minds are too full, that they are too excited, that the weather is too hot or too cold, that there is too much noise, or that the very silence is too oppressive. But, excited or comatose, hot or cold, in the rumble of London streets or the dead silence of--well, he had never tried the Desert, but let us say Walton-on-the-Naze, Geoffrey Ludlow no sooner laid his head on the pillow than he went off into a sound, glorious, healthy sleep--steady, calm, and peaceful; not one of your stertorous, heavy, growling slumbers, nor your starting, fly-catching, open-mouthed, moaning states, but a placid, regular sleep, so quiet and undisturbed that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and often as a child had caused his mother to examine with anxiety whether the motionless figure stretched upon the little bed was only sleeping naturally, or whether the last long sleep had not fallen on it.
Dreams he had, no doubt; but they by no means disturbed the refreshing, invigorating character of his repose. On the night of his adventure in the streets, he dreamt the Lamia dream without its in the least affecting his slumber; and when he opened his eyes the next morning, with the recollection of where he was, and what day it was, and what he had to do--those post-waking thoughts which come to all of us--there came upon him an indefinable sensation of something pleasurable and happy, of something bright and sunshiny, of something which made his heart feel light within him, and caused him to open his eyes and grapple with the day at once.
Some one surely must long ere this have remarked how our manner of waking from slumber is affected by our state of mind. The instant that consciousness comes upon us, the dominant object of our thoughts, be it pleasant or horrible, is before us: the absurd quarrel with the man in the black beard last night, about--whatwasit about? the acceptance which Smith holds, which must be met, and can't be renewed; the proposal in the conservatory to Emily Fairbairn, while she was flushed with the firstvalseafter supper, and we with Mrs. Tresillian's champagne;--or,per contra, as they say in the City, the thrilling pressure of Flora Maitland's hand, and the low whisper in which she gave us rendezvous at the Botanical Fête this afternoon the lawyer's letter informing us of our godfather's handsome legacy;--all these, whether for good or ill, come before us with the first unclosing of our eyelids. If agreeable we rouse ourselves at once, and lie simultaneously chewing the cud of pleasant thoughts and enjoying the calm haven of our bed; if objectionable, we try and shut them out yet for a little while, and turning round court sleep once more.
What was the first thought that flashed across Geoffrey Ludlow's brain immediately on his waking, and filled him with hope and joy? Not the remembrance of the purchase of his picture by Mr. Stompff, though that certainly occurred to him, with Stompff's promises of future employment, and the kind words of his old friends at the Titians, all floating simultaneously across his mind. But with these thoughts came the recollection of a fragile form, and a thin hand with long lithe fingers wound round his own, and a low feeble voice whispering the words "Bless you!--saved me!" in his listening ear.
Beneath the flickering gas-lamps, or in the dim half-light of Mrs. Flexor's room, he had been unable to make out the colour of the eyes, or of the thick hair which hung in heavy masses over her cheeks; it was a spiritual recollection of her at the best; but he would soon change that into a material inspection. So, after settling in his own mind--that mind which coincides so readily with our wishes--that it was benevolence which prompted his every action, and which roused in him the desire to know how the patient of the previous night was getting on, he sprang from his bed, and pulled the string of his shower-bath with an energy which not even the knowledge of the water's probable temperature could mitigate. But he had not proceeded half-way through his toilet, when the old spirit of irresolution began to exercise its dominion over him. Was it not somewhat of a Quixotic adventure in which he was engaging? To succour a starving frozen girl on a wet night was merely charitable and humane; there was no man of anything like decent feeling but would have acted as he had done, and--by George!--here the hair-brushes were suspended in mid-air, just threatening a descent one on either side of his bushy head--wouldn't it have been better to have accepted Charley Pott's suggestion, and let the policeman take her to the workhouse? There she would have had every attention and--bah! every attention! the truckle-bed in a gaunt bare room, surrounded by disease in every shape; the perfunctory visits of the parish-doctor; the--O no! and, moreover, had he not heard, or at all events imagined he heard, the pallid lips mutter "Not there!" No! there was something in her which--which--at all events--well,ruat caelum, it was done, and he must take the consequences; and down came the two hair-brushes like two avalanches, and worried his unresisting scalp like two steam-harrows. The recollection of the fragile frame, and the thin hands, and the broken voice, supported by the benevolent theory, had it all their own way from that time out, until he had finished dressing, and sent him downstairs in a happy mood, pleased with what he had done, more pleased still with the notion of what he was about to do. He entered the room briskly, and striding up to an old lady sitting at the head of the breakfast-table, gave her a sounding kiss.
"Goodmorning, dearest mother.--How do, Til, dear?" turning to a young woman who was engaged in pouring out the tea. "I'm late again, I see."
"Always on sausage mornings, I notice, Geoffrey," said Mrs. Ludlow, with a little asperity. "It does not so much matter with haddock, though it becomes leathery; or eggs, for you like them hard; but sausages should be eaten hot, or not at all; and to-day, when I'd sent specially for these, knowing that nasty herb-stuffing is indigestible--let them deny it if they can--it does seem hard that--well, never mind--"
Mrs. Ludlow was a very good old lady, with one great failing: she was under the notion that she had to bear what she called "a cross," a most uncomfortable typical object, which caused all her friends the greatest annoyance, but in which, though outwardly mournful, she secretly rejoiced, as giving her a peculiar status in her circle. This cross intruded itself into all the social and domestic details of her life, and was lugged out metaphorically on all possible occasions.
"Don't mind me, mother," said Geoff; "the sausages will do splendidly. I overslept myself; I was a little late last night."
"O, at those everlasting Titians.--I declare I forgot," said the young woman who had been addressed as "Til," and who was Geoffrey's only sister. "Ah, poor fellow! studying his art till two this morning, wasn't he?" And Miss Til made a comic sympatheticmoue, which made Geoff laugh.
"Two!" said Mrs. Ludlow; "nearer three, Matilda. I ought to know, for I had water running down my back all night, and my feet as cold as stone; and I had a perfect recollection of having left the key of the linen closet in the door, owing to my having been hurried down to luncheon yesterday when I was giving Martha out the clean pillowcases. However, if burglars do break into that linen-closet, it won't be for my not having mentioned it, as I call you to witness, Matilda."
"All right, mother," said Geoffrey; "we'll run the risk of that. I'm very sorry I disturbed the house, but Iwaslate, I confess; but I did some good, though."
"O yes, Geoffrey, we know," said Matilda. "Got some new notions for a subject, or heard some aesthetic criticism; or met some wonderful lion, who's going to astonish the world, and of whom no one ever hears again! You always have done something extraordinary when you're out very late, I find."
"Well, I did something really extraordinary last night. I sold my picture the 'Ballroom,' you know; and for what do you think?--two hundred pounds."
"O, Geoff, you dear, darling old Geoff! I am so glad! Two hundred pounds! O, Geoff, Geoff! You dear, lucky old fellow!" and Miss Till flung her arms round her brother's neck and hugged him with delight. Mrs. Ludlow said never a word; but her cross melted away momentarily, her eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered. Geoffrey noticed this, and so soon as he had returned his sister's hearty embrace, he went up to his mother, and kneeling by her side, put up his face for her kiss.
"God bless you, my son!" said the old lady reverently, as she gave it; "God bless you! This is brave news, indeed. I knew it would come in time; but--"
"Yes; but tell us all about it, Geoff. How did it come about? and however did you pluck up courage, you dear, bashful, nervous old thing, to ask such a price?"
"I--why, Til, you know that I--and you, dear mother, you know too that--not that I am bashful, as Til says; but still there's something. O, I should never have sold the picture, I believe, if I'd been let alone. It was Charley Potts sold it for me."
"Charles Potts! That ridiculous young man! Well, I should never have thought it," said Mrs. Ludlow.
Miss Matilda said nothing, but a faint flush rose on her neck and cheeks, and died away again as quickly as it came.
"O, he's a capital man of business--for anybody else, that's to say. He don't do much good for himself. He sold the picture for me, and prevented my saying a word in the whole affair. And who do you think has bought it? Mr. Stompff, the great dealer, who tells me he'll take as many more of the same style as I like to paint."
"This is great news, indeed, my boy," said the old lady. "You've only to persevere, and your fortune's made. Only one thing, Geoffrey,--never paint on Sunday, or you'll never become a great man."
"Well but, mother," said Geoff, smiling, "Sir Joshua Reynolds painted always on Sundays until Johnson's death and he was a great man."
"Ah, well, my dear," replied his mother forcibly, if not logically, "that's nothing to do with it."
Then Geoffrey, who had been hurrying through his sausage, and towards the last began to grow nervous and fidgety--accounted for by his mother and sister from his anxiety to go and see Mr. Stompff, and at once fling himself on to fresh canvases--finished his breakfast, and went out to get his hat. Mrs. Ludlow, with her "cross" rapidly coming upon her, sat down to "do the books,"--an inspection of the household brigade of tradesmen's accounts which she carried on weekly with the sternest rigour; and Matilda, who was by no means either a romantic or a strong-minded woman commenced to darn a basketful of Geoffrey's socks. Then the sock-destroyer put his head in at the door, his mouth ornamented with a large cigar, and calling out "Goodbye," departed on his way.
The fragile form, the thin hands, and the soft low voice had it all their own way with Geoffrey Ludlow now. He was going to see their owner; in less than an hour he should know the colour of the eyes and the hair; and figuratively Geoffrey walked upon air; literally, he strode along with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, swinging his stick, and, but for the necessity of clenching his cigar between his teeth, inclined to hum a tune aloud. He scarcely noticed any of the people he met; but such as he did casually glance at he pitied from the bottom of his soul: there were no thin hands or soft voices waiting for them. And it must be owned that the passers-by who noticed him returned his pity. The clerks on the omnibuses, sucking solemnly at their briar-root pipes, or immersed in their newspapers, solemn staid men going in "to business," on their regular daily routine, looked up with wonder on this buoyant figure, with its black wideawake hat and long floating beard, its jerky walk, its swinging stick, and its general air of light-hearted happiness. The cynical clerks, men with large families, whom nothing but an increase of salary could rouse, interchanged shoulder-shrugs of contempt, and the omnibus-conductor, likewise a cynic, after taking a long stare at Geoffrey, called out to his driver, "'Appy cove that! looks as if he'd found a fourpennypiece, don't he?"
Entirely ignorant of the attention he was attracting, Geoff blithely pursued his way. He lived at Brompton, and he was bound for the neighbourhood of Portland Place; so he turned in at the Albert Gate, and crossing the enclosure and the Row, made for Grosvenor Gate. In the Park he was equally the object of remark: the nurse-girls called their charges to come "to heel" out of the way of that "nasty ugly big man;" the valetudinarians taking their constitutional in the Row loathed him for swinging his stick and making their horses shy as he passed; the park-keepers watched him narrowly, as one probably with felonious intent to the plants or the ducks.
Still, utterly unconscious, Geoffrey went swinging along across Grosvenor Square, down Brook Street; and not until he turned into Bond Street did he begin to realise entirely the step he was about to take. Then he wavered, in mind and in gait; he thought he would turn back: he did turn back, irresolute, doubtful. Better have nothing more to do with it; nip it in the bud; send Charley Potts with a couple of sovereigns to Mrs. Flexor's, and tell her to set the girl on her way again, and wish her God-speed. But what if she were still ill, unable to move? people didn't gain sufficient strength in twelve hours; and Charley, though kind-hearted, was ratherbrusque; and then the low voice, with the "Bless you!--saved me!" came murmuring in his ear; and Geoffrey, like Whittington, turned again, and strode on towards Little Flotsam Street.
When he got near Flexor's door, he faltered again, and very nearly gave in: but looking up, saw Mrs. Flexor standing on the pavement; and perceiving by her manner that his advent had been noticed, proceeded, and was soon alongside that matron.
"Good morning, Mrs. Flexor."
"Good momin', sir; thought you'd be over early, though not lookin' for you now, but for Reg'las, my youngest plague, so called after Mr. Scumble's Wictory of the Carthageniums, who has gone for milk for some posset for our dear; who is much better this momin', the Lord a mussy! Dr. Rollix have been, and says we may sit up a little, if taking nourishment prescribed; and pleased to see you we shall be. A pretty creetur, Mr. Ludlow, though thin as thin and low as low: but what can we expect?"
"She is better, then?"
"A deal better, more herself like; though not knowing what she was before, I can't exactly say. Flexor was fine and buffy when he came home last night, after you was gone, sir. Them nasty Titiums, he always gets upset there. And now he's gone to sit to Mr. Potts for--ah, well, some Roman party whose name I never can remember."
"Is your patient up, Mrs. Flexor?"
"Gettin'. We shall be ready to see you in five minutes, sir. I'll go and see to her at once."
Mrs. Flexor retired, and Geoffrey was left to himself for a quarter of an hour standing in the street, during which time he amused himself as most people would under similar circumstances. That is to say, he stared at the houses opposite and at the people who passed; and then he beat his stick against his leg, and then he whistled a tune, and then, having looked at his watch five times, he looked at it for the sixth. Then he walked up the street, taking care to place his foot on the round iron of every coal-shoot; and then he walked down the street, carrying out a determination to step in the exact centre of every flagstone; and then, after he had pulled his beard a dozen times, and lifted his wideawake hat as many, that the air might blow upon his hot forehead, he saw Mrs. Flexor's head protrude from the doorway, and he felt very much inclined to run away. But he checked himself in time, and entered the house, and, after a ghostly admonition from Mrs. Flexor "not to hagitate her," he opened the parlour-door, which Mrs. Flexor duly shut behind him, and entered the room.
Little light ever groped its way between the closely-packed rows of houses in Little Flotsam Street, even on the brightest summer day; and on a dark and dreary winter's morning Mrs. Flexor's little front parlour was horribly dark. The worthy landlady had some wild notion, whence derived no one knew, that an immense amount of gentility was derived from keeping the light out; and consequently the bottom parts of her windows were fitted with dwarf wire-blinds, and the top parts with long linen-blinds, and across both were drawn curtains made of a kind of white fishing-net; so that even so little daylight as Little Flotsam Street enjoyed was greatly diluted in the Flexorian establishment.
But Geoffrey Ludlow saw stretched out on a miserable black horsehair sofa before him there this fragile form which had been haunting his brain for the last twelve hours. Ah, how thin and fragile it was; how small it looked, even in, its worn draggled black-merino dress! As he advanced noiselessly, he saw that the patient slept; her head was thrown back, her delicate white hands (and almost involuntarily Geoffrey remarked that she wore no wedding-ring) were clasped across her breast, and her hair, put off her dead-white face, fell in thick clusters over her shoulders.
With a professional eye Geoffrey saw at once that whatever trouble she might have taken, she could not have been more artistically posed than in this natural attitude. The expression of her eyes was wanting; and, as he sunk into a chair at her feet, her eyes opened upon him. Then he saw her face in its entirety; saw large deep-violet eyes, with dark lashes and eyebrows; a thin, slightly aquiline nose; small thin close lips, and a little chin; a complexion of the deadest white, without the smallest colour and hair, long thick rich luxuriant hair, of a deep, red-god colour--not the poetic "auburn," not the vulgar "carrots;" a rich metallic red, unmistakable, admitting of no compromise, no darkening by grease or confining by fixature--a great mass of deep-red hair, strange, weird, and oddly beautiful. The deep-violet eyes, opening slowly, fixed their regard on his face without a tremor, and with a somewhat languid gaze; then brightening slowly, while the hands were unclasped, and the voice--how well Geoff remembered its tones, and how they thrilled him again!--murmured faintly, "It is you!"
What is that wonderful something in the human voice which at once proclaims the social status of the speaker? The proletary and theroturier, Nature willing, can have as good features, grow as flowing beards, be as good in stature, grace, and agility, as the noblest patrician, or the man in whose veins flows the purestsangre azul; but they fail generally in hands, always in voice. Geoffrey Ludlow, all his weakness and irresolution notwithstanding, was necessarily by his art a student of life and character; and no sooner did he hear those three little words spoken in that tone, than all his floating ideas of shamming tramp or hypocritical streetwalker, as connected with the recipient of his last night's charity, died away, and he recognised at once the soft modulations of education, if not of birth.
But those three words, spoken in deep low quivering tones, while they set the blood dancing in Geoffrey Ludlow's veins, made him at the same time very uncomfortable. He had a dread of anything romantic; and there flashed through his mind an idea that he could only answer this remark by exclaiming, "Tis I!" or "Ay, indeed!" or something else equally absurd and ridiculous. So he contented himself with bowing his head and putting out his hand--into which the long lithe fingers came fluttering instantly. Then with burning cheeks Geoffrey bent forward, and said, "You are better to-day?"
"Oh, so much--so much better! thanks to you, thanks to you!"
"Your doctor has been?" She bowed her head in reply.
"And you have everything you wish for?" She bowed again, this time glancing up--with, O, such a light in the deep-violet eyes--into Geoffrey's face!
"Then--then I will leave you now," said he, awkwardly enough. The glance fell as he said this; but flashed again full and earnest in an instant; the lithe fingers wound round his wrist, and the voice, even lower and more tremulously than before, whispered, "You'll come to-morrow?"
Geoff flushed again, stammered, "Yes, O, by all means!" made a clumsy bow, and went out.
Now this was a short, and not a particularly satisfactory, interview; but the smallest detail of it remained in Geoffrey Ludlow's mind, and was reproduced throughout the remainder of that day and the first portion of the succeeding night, for him to ponder over. He felt the clasp of her fingers yet on his wrist, and he heard the soft voice, "You'll come to-morrow?" It must be a long distance, he thought, that he would not go to gaze into those eyes, to touch that hand, to hear that voice again!
Mr. Potts lived in Berners Street, on the second floor of a rambling big old-fashioned house, which in its palmy days had been inhabited by people of distinction; and in which it was rumoured in the art-world that the great Mr. Fuseli had once lived, and painted those horrors which sprung from the nightmare consequent on heavy suppers of pork-chops. But these were the days of its decadence, and each of its floors had now a separate and distinct tenant. The ground-floor was a kind of half showroom, half shop, held by Mr. Lectern, the great church-upholsterer. Specimens of stained-glass windows, croziers, and brass instruments like exaggerated beadles'-staves, gilt sets of communion-service, and splendidly-worked altar-cloths, occupied the walls; the visitor walked up to the desk at which Mr. Lectern presided between groves of elaborately-carved pulpits and reading-desks, and brazen eagles were extending their wings in every available corner. On the first-floor Mdlle. Stetti gave lessons to the nobility, gentry, and the public in general in the fashionable dances of the day, and in the Magyar sceptre-exercises for opening the chest and improving the figure. Mdlle. Stetti had a very large connection; and as many of her pupils were adults who had never learned to dance while they were supple and tender, and as, under the persevering tuition of their little instructress, they gambolled in a cumbrous and rather elephantine manner, they earned for themselves many hearty anathemas from Mr. Potts, who found it impossible to work with anything like a steady hand while the whole house was rocking under the influence of a stout stockbroker doing the "changes," or while the walls trembled at every bound of the fourteen-stone lady from Islington, who was being initiated into the mysteries of the gavotte. But Charley Potts' pipe was the only confidant of his growled anathemas, and on the whole he got on remarkably well with his neighbours; for Mr. Lectern had lent him bits of oak furniture to paint from; and once, when he was ill, Mdlle. Stetti, who was the dearest, cheeriest, hardest-working, best-tempered little creature in existence, had made him broths and "goodies" with her own hand, and when he was well, had always a kind word and a smile for him--and, indeed, revelled in the practical humour and buffoonery of "ce farceurPott." For Mr. Potts was nothing if not funny; the staircase leading to his rooms began to be decorated immediately after you had passed Mdlle. Stetti's apartments; an enormous hand, sketched in crayon, with an outstretched finger, directed attention to an inscription--"To the halls of Potts!" Just above the little landing you were confronted by a big beef-eater's head, out of the mouth of which floated a balloon-like legend--"Walk up, walk up, and see the great Potts!" The aperture of the letter-box in the door formed the mouth in a capital caricatured head of Charley himself; and instead of a bell-handle there hung a hare's-foot, beneath which was gummed a paper label with a written inscription "Tug the trotter."
Three days after the gathering at the Titian Sketching-Club, Mr. Potts sat in his studio, smoking a pipe, and glaring vacantly at a picture on an easel in front of him. It was not a comfortable room; its owner's warmest friend could not have asserted that. There was no carpet, and the floor was begrimed with the dirt of ages, and with spilt tobacco and trodden-in cigar-ash. The big window was half stopped-up, and had no curtain. An old oak-cabinet against the wall, surmounted by the inevitable plaster torso, and studies of hands and arms, had lost one of its supporting feet, and looked as though momentarily about to topple forward. A table in the middle of the room was crowded with litter, amongst which a pewter-pot reared itself conspicuously. Over an old sofa were thrown a big rough Inverness-cape, a wideawake hat, and a thick stick; while on a broken, ragged, but theatrically-tawdry arm-chair, by the easel, were a big palette already "set," a colour-box, and a sheaf of brushes. Mr. Potts was dressed in a shepherd's-plaid shooting coat, adorned here and there with dabs of paint, and with semi-burnt brown patches, the result of the incautious dropping of incandescent tobacco and vesuvians. He had on a pair of loose rough trousers, red-morocco slippers without heels, and he wore no neckcloth; but his big turned-down shirt-collar was open at the throat. He wore no beard, but had a large sweeping Austrian moustache, which curled fiercely at the ends; had thin brown hair, light blue eyes, and the freshest and healthiest of complexions. No amount of late hours, of drinking and smoking, could apparently have any effect on this baby-skin; and under the influence of cold water and yellow soap, both of which he used in large quantities, he seemed destined to remain--so far as his complexion was concerned--"beautiful for ever,"--or at least until long after Madame Rachel's clients had seen the worthlessness of pigments. Looking at him as he sat there--his back bent nearly double, his eyes fixed on his picture, his pipe fixed stiffly between his teeth, and his big bony hands clasped in front of him--there was no mistaking him for anything but a gentleman; ill-dressed, slatternly, if you like; but a true gentleman, every inch of him.
The "trotter" outside being tugged with tremendous violence, roused him from his reverie, and he got up and opened the door, saying, as he did so, "Why didn't you ring? I would, if I'd been you. You're in the bell-hanging line, I should think, by the way you jerked my wire. Hollo, Bowker, my boy! is it you? What's the matter? Are you chivied by a dun on the staircase, or fainting for a pull at the pewter, that you come with such a ring as that? Bring your body in, old man; there's a wind here enough to shave you."
Mr. Bowker preceded his friend into the room, looked into the pewter-pot, drained it, wiped his beard with a handkerchief; which he took out of his hat, and said, in a solemn deep voice: "Potts, my pipkin, how goes it?"
"Pretty well, old man, pretty well--considering the weather. And you?"
"Your Williamse porte bien. Hallo!" glancing at the easel, while he took a pipe from his pocket and filled it from a jar on the table; "hallo! something new! What's the subject? Who is the Spanish party in tights? and what's the venerable buffer in the clerical get-up of the period putting out his hand about?"
"Oh, it's a scene fromGil Blas, where the Archbishop of Grenada discharges him, you know."
"No, I don't, and I don't want to hear; your William, dear boy, has discovered that life is too short to have anything explained to him: if he don't see it at first, he let's it pass. The young party's right leg is out of drawing, my chick; just give your William a bit of chalk. There--not being a patient at the Orthopaedic Hospital--that's where his foot would come to. The crimson of the reverend gent's gown is about as bad as anything Ive seen for a long time, dear boy. Hand over the palette and brushes for two minutes. Your William is a rum old skittle; but if there's one thing he knows about, it is colour." And Charley, who knew that, with all his eccentricity, Mr. Bowker, or "your William," as he always spoke of himself; was a thorough master of his art, handed him what he required, and sat by watching him.
A fat bald-headed man with a grizzled beard, a large paunch and flat splay feet, badly dressed and not too clean, Mr. Bowker did not give one the idea of ever having been an "object of interest" to any one save the waiter at the tavern where he dined, or the tobacconist where he bought his Cavendish. But yet there had been a day when bright eyes grew brighter at his approach, tiny ears latticed with chestnut-hair had eagerly drunk in the music of his voice, gentle hands had thrilled beneath his touch. He had bright blue eyes himself then, and long hair, and a slim figure. He was young Mr. Bowker, whose first pictures exhibited at Somerset House had made such a sensation, and who was so much noticed by Sir David Wilkie, and for whom Mr. Northcote prophesied such a future, and whom Mr. Fuseli called a "coot prave poy!" He was the young Mr. Bowker who was recommended by Sir Thomas Lawrence as drawing-master to the lovely young wife of old Mr. Van Den Bosch, the Dutch banker and financier long resident in London. He was "that scoundrel Bowker, sir," who, being wildly romantic, fell head-over-ears in love with his pupil; and finding that she was cruelly ill-treated by the old ruffian her husband, ran away with her to Spain, and by that rash act smashed-up his career and finally settled himself for ever. Old Van Den Bosch got a divorce, and died, leaving all his money to his nephews; and then William Bowker and the woman he had eloped with returned to England, to find himself universally shunned and condemned. His art was as good, nay a thousand times better than ever; but they would not hear of him at the Royal Academy now; would not receive his pictures; would not allow the mention of his name. Patrons turned their backs on him, debts accumulated, the woman for whom he had sacrificed everything died,--penitent so far as she herself was concerned, but adoring her lover to the last, and calling down blessings on him with her latest breath. And then William Bowker strove no more, but accepted his position and sunk into what he was, a kindly, jolly, graceless vagabond, doing no harm, but very little good. He had a little private money on which he lived; and as time progressed, some of his patrons, who found he painted splendidly and cheaply, came back to him and gave him commissions; but he never again attempted to regain his status; and so long as he had enough to supply his simple daily wants, seemed content. He was a great favourite with some half-dozen young men of Charley Potts's set, who had a real love and regard for him, and was never so happy as when helping them with advice and manual assistance.
Charley watched him at his work, and saw with delight the archbishop's robe gradually growing all a-glow beneath the master's touch; and then, to keep him in good-humour and amused, began to talk, telling him a score of anecdotes, and finally asking him if he'd heard anything of Tommy Smalt.
"Tommy Smalt, sir?" cried Bowker, in his cheery voice; "Tommy Smalt, sir, is in clover! Your William has been able to put Tommy on to a revenue of at least thirty shillings a-week. Tommy is now the right-hand man of Jacobs of Newman Street; and the best judges say that there are no Ostades, Jan Steens, or Gerard Dows like Tommy's."
"What do you mean?--copies?"
"Copies! no, sir: originals."
"Originals!"
"Certainly! original Tenierses, of boors drinking; Wouvermanns, not forgetting the white horse; or Jan Steens, with the never-failing episode;--all carefully painted by Tommy Smalt and his fellow-labourers! Ah, Jacobs is a wonderful man! There never was such a fellow; he sticks at nothing; and when he finds a man who can do his particular work, he keeps him in constant employment."
"Well, but is the imposition never detected? Don't the pictures look new?"
"Oh, most verdant of youths, of course not! The painting is clobbered with liquorice-water; and the varnish is so prepared that it cracks at once; and the signature in the corner is always authentic; and there's a genuine look of cloudy vacancy and hopeless bankruptcy about the whole that stamps it at once to the connoisseur as the real thing. Tommy's doing a 'Youth's Head' by Rembrandt now, which ought to get him higher pay; it ought indeed. It's for a Manchester man. They're very hot about Rembrandts at Manchester."
"Well, you've put me up to a new wrinkle. And Jacobs lives by this?"
"Lives by it! ay, and lives like a prince too. Mrs. J. to fetch him every day in an open barouche, and coachman and footman in skyblue livery, and all the little J.'s hanging over the carriage-doors, rendering Newman Street dark with the shadow of their noses. Lives by it! ay, and why not? There will always be fools in the world, thank Heaven!--or how should you and I get on, Charley, my boy?--and so long as people will spend money on what they know nothing about, for the sake of cutting-out their friends, gaining a spurious reputation for taste, or cutting a swell as 'patrons of the fine-arts,'--patrons indeed! that word nearly chokes me!--it's quite right that they should be pillaged and done. No man can love art in the same manner that he can love pancakes. He must know something about it, and have some appreciation of it. Now no man with the smallest knowledge would go to Jacobs; and so I say that the lords and railway-men and cotton-men who go there simply as a piece of duff--to buy pictures as they would carpets--are deuced well served out. There! your William has not talked so much as that in one breath for many a long day. The pewter's empty. Send for some more beer, and let's have a damp; my throat's as dry as a lime-burner's wig."
Charley Potts took up the pewter-measure, and going on to the landing outside the door, threw open the staircase-window, and gave a shrill whistle. This twice repeated had some effect! for a very much-be-ribboned young lady in the bar of the opposite public-house looked up, and nodded with great complaisance; and then Charley, having made a solemn bow, waved the empty quart-pot three times round his head. Two minutes afterwards a bare-headed youth, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, crossed the road, carefully bearing a pasteboard hat-box, with which he entered the house, and which he delivered into Mr. Potts' hands.
"Good boy, Richard I never forget the hat-box; come for it this evening, and take back both the empty pewters in it.--It would never do, Bowker, my boy, to have beer--vulgar beer, sir--in its native pewter come into a respectable house like this. The pious parties, who buy their rattletraps and properties of old Lectern down below, would be scandalised; and poor little Mossoo woman Stetti would lose her swell connection. So Caroline and I--that's Caroline in the bar, with the puce-coloured ribbons--arranged this little dodge; and it answers first-rate."
"Ha--a!" said Mr. Bowker, putting down the tankard half-empty, and drawing a long breath; "beer is to your William what what's-his-name is to thingummy; which, being interpreted, means that he can't get on without it. I never take a big pull at a pewter without thinking of our Geoff. How is our Geoff?"
"Our Geoff is--hush! some one coming up stairs. What's to-day? Friday. The day I told the tailor to call. Hush!"
The footsteps came creaking up the stairs until they stopped outside Charley Potts' door, on which three peculiar blows were struck,--one very loud, then two in rapid succession.
"A friend!" said Charley, going to the door and opening it. "Pass, friend, and give the countersign! Hallo, Flexor! is it you? I forgot our appointment for this morning. Come in."
It was, indeed, the great model, who, fresh-shaved, and with his hair neatly poodled under his curly-brimmed hat, entered the room with a swagger, which, when he perceived a stranger, he allowed to subside into an elaborate bow.
"Now then, Flexor, get to work! we won't mind my friend here; he knows all this sort of game of old," said Charley; while Flexor began to arrange himself into the position of the expelled secretary of the archbishop.
"Ay, and I know M. Flexor of old, that's another thing!" said Bowker, with a deep chuckle, expelling a huge puff of smoke.
"Do you, sir?" said Flexor, still rigid in the Gil-Bias position, and never turning his head; "maybe, sir; many gents knows Flexor."
"Yes; but many gents didn't know Flexor five-and-twenty years ago, when he stood for Mercutio discoursing of Queen Mab."
"Lor' a mussy!" cried Flexor, forgetting all about his duty, parting the smoke with his hand and bending down to look into William's face. "It's Mr. Bowker, and I ought to have knowed him by the voice. And how are you, sir? hearty you look, though you'yve got a paucity of nobthatch, and what ''ir you 'ave is that gray, you might be your own grandfather. Why, I haven't seen you since you was gold-medallist at the 'cademy, 'cept once when you come with Mrs.----"
"There, that'll do, Flexor! I'm alive still, you see; and so I see are you. And your wife, is she alive?"
"O yes, sir; but, Lord, how different from what you know'd her! None of your Wenuses, nor Dalilys, nor Nell Gwyns now! she's growed stout and cumbersome, and never sits 'cept some gent wants a Mrs. Primrose in that everlastin' Wicar, or a old woman a-scoldin' a gal because she wants to marry a poor cove, or somethin' in that line; and then I says, 'Well, Jane, you may as well earn a shillin' an hour as any one else,' I says."
"And you've been a model all these years, Flexor?"
"Well, no sir--off and on; but Ive always come back to it. I was a actor for three years; did Grecian stators,--Ajax defyin' the lightnin'; Slave a-listenin' to conspirators; Boy a-sharpenin' his knife, and that game, you know, in a cirkiss. But I didn't like it; they're a low lot, them actors, with no feelin' for art. And then Iwas a gentleman's servant; but that wouldn't do; they do dam' and cuss their servants so, the gentlemen do, as I couldn't stand it; and I was a mute."
"A mute!--what, a funeral mute?"
"Yes, sir; black-job business; and wery good that is,--plenty of pleasant comp'ny and agreeable talk, and nice rides in the summer time on the 'earses to all the pleasant simmetries in the suburbs! But in the winter it's frightful! and my last job I was nearly killed. We had a job at 'Ampstead, in the debth of snow; and it was frightful cold on the top of the 'Eath. It was the party's good lady as was going to be interred, and the party himself were frightful near; in fact, a reg'lar screw. Well, me and my mate had been standin' outside the 'ouse-door with the banners in our 'ands for an hour, until we was so froze we could scarcely hold the banners. So I says, I won't stand no longer, I says; and I gev a soft rap, and told the servant we must have a drop of somethin' short, or we should be killed with cold. The servant goes and tells her master, and what do you think he says? 'Drink!' he says. 'Nonsense!' he says; 'if they're cold, let 'em jump about and warm 'emselves,' he says. Fancy a couple of mutes with their banners in their 'ands a-jumpin' about outside the door just before the party was brought out. So that disgusted me, and I gev it up, and come back to the old game agen."
"Now, Flexor," said Charley, "if you've finished your biography, get back again."
"All right, sir!" and again Flexor became rigid, as the student of Santillane.
"What were we talking of when Flexor arrived? O, I remember; I was asking you about Geoff Ludlow. What of him?"
"Well, sir, Geoff Ludlow has made a thunderingcoupat last. The other night at the Titians he sold a picture to Stompff for two hundred pounds; more than that, Stompff promised him no end of commissions."
"That's first-rate! Your William pledges him!" and Mr. Bowker finished the stout.
"He'll want all he can make, gentlemen," said Flexor, who, seeing the pewter emptied, became cynical; "he'll want all he can make, if he goes on as he's doin' now."
"What do you mean?" asked Bowker.
"He's in love, Mr. Ludlow is; that's wot I mean. That party--you know, Mr. Potts--as you brought to our place that night--he's been to see her every day, he has; and my missis says, from what she 'ave seen and 'eard--well, that's neither 'ere nor there," said Flexor, checking himself abruptly as he remembered that the keyhole was the place whence Mrs. Flexor's information had been derived.
Charley Potts gave a loud whistle, and said, "The devil!" then turning to Bowker, he was about to tell the story of the wet night's adventure, but William putting up his finger warningly, grunted out "Nachher!" and Charley, who understood German, ceased his chatter and went on with his painting.
When the sitting was over, and Flexor had departed, William Bowker returned to the subject, saying, "Now, Charley, tell your William all about this story of Geoff and his adventure."
Charley Potts narrated it circumstantially, Bowker sitting grimly by and puffing his pipe the while. When he had finished, Bowker never spoke for full five minutes; but his brow was knit, and his teeth clenched round his pipe. At length he said, "This is a bad business, so far as I see; a devilish bad business! If the girl were in Geoff's own station or if he were younger, it wouldn't so much matter; but Geoff must be forty now, and at that age a man's deuced hard to turn from any thing he gets into his head. Well, we must wait and see. I'd rather it were you, Charley, by a mile; one might have some chance then. But you never think of any thing of that sort, eh?"
What made Charley Potts colour as he said, "Welt--not in Geoff's line, at all events?"
William Bowker noticed the flush, and said ruefully, "Ah, I see! Always the way! Now let's go and get some beef or something to eat: I'm hungry."
Mr. Flexor was by nature mendacious; indeed his employers used pleasantly to remark, that when he did not lie, it was simply by accident; but in what he had mentioned to Charley Potts about Geoffrey Ludlow's visits to the nameless female then resident in his, Flexor's, house, he had merely spoken the truth. To be sure there had been anarrière penséein his remark; the fact being that Flexor objected to matrimony as an institute amongst his patrons. He found that by an artist in a celibate state beer was oftener sent for, donations of cigars were more frequent, cupboards were more constantly unlocked, and irregularities of attendance on his part, consequent on the frivolities of the preceding night, were more easily overlooked, than when there was a lady to share confidence and keys, and to regard all models, both male and female, as "horrid creatures." But although Mr. Flexor had spoken somewhat disparagingly of Geoffrey's frequent visits, and had by his hints roused up a certain amount of suspicion in the breasts of Charley Potts and that grim old cynic William Bowker, he was himself far from knowing what real ground for apprehension existed, or how far matters had progressed, at least with one of the parties concerned.
For Geoffrey Ludlow was hard hit! In vain he attempted to argue with himself that all he had done, was doing, and might do, was but prompted by benevolence. A secret voice within him told him that his attempts at self-deceit were of the feeblest, and that, did he but dare to confess it, he knew that there was in this woman whom he had rescued from starvation an attraction more potent than he had ever yet submitted to. It was, it may be said, his duty to call and see how she was getting on, to learn that she wanted for nothing, to hear from her own lips that his orders for her comfort had been obeyed; but it was not his duty to sit watching jealously every glance of her eye, every turn of her head, every motion of her lithe fingers. It wasnothis duty to bear away with him recollections of how she sat when she said this or answered that; of the manner in which, following a habit of hers, she would push back the thick masses of her gleaming hair, and tuck them away behind her pretty ears; or, following another habit, she would drum petulantly on the floor with her little foot, when talking of any thing that annoyed her--as, for instance, Mrs. Flexor's prying curiosity.
What was it that caused him to lie awake at night, tossing from side to side on his hot pillow, ever before him the deep-violet eyes, the pallid face set in masses of deep-red hair, the slight frail figure? What was it that made his heart beat loudly, his breath come thickly, his whole being tingle with a strange sensation--now ecstatic delight, now dull blank misery? Not philanthropy, I trow. The superintendents of boys' reformatories and refuges for the houseless poor may, in thinking over what good they have achieved, enjoy a comfortable amount of self-satisfaction and proper pride; but I doubt if the feeling ever rises to this level of excitement. Not much wonder if Geoffrey himself, suffering acutely under the disease, knew not, or refused to avow to himself, any knowledge of the symptoms. Your darling child, peacefully sleeping in his little bed, shall show here and there an angry skin-spot, which you think heat or cold, or any thing else, until the experienced doctor arrives, and with a glance pronounces it scarlet-fever. Let us be thankful, in such a case, that the prostrate patient is young. Geoffrey's was as dire a malady, and one which, coming on at forty years of age, usually places the sufferer in a perilous state. It was called Love; not the ordinary sober inclination of a middle-aged man, not that thin line of fire quivering amongst a heap of ashes which betokens the faded passion of the worn and sated voluptuary; this was boy-love, calf-love, mad-spooniness--any thing by which you can express the silliest, wildest, pleasantest, most miserable phase of human existence. It never comes but once to any one. Thecapricesof the voluptuary are as like to each other as peas or grains of sand; the platonic attachments or the sentimentalliaisonsindulged in by foolish persons of both sexes with nothing to do may have some slight shade of distinction, but are equally wanting in backbone andvis. Not to man or woman is it given to be ever twice "in love"--a simple phrase, which means every thing, but needs very little explanation. My readers will comprehend what I want to convey, and will not require my feeble efforts in depicting the state. Suffice it to say, that Geoffrey Ludlow, who had hitherto gone through life scot-free, not because he was case-hardened, not because he was infection-proof, or that he had run no risks, but simply from the merest chance,--now fell a victim to the disease, and dropped powerless before its attack.
He did not even strive to make head against it much. A little of his constitutional wavering and doubtfulness came into play for a short time, suggesting that this passion--for such he must allow it--was decidedly an unworthy one; that at present he knew nothing of the girl's antecedents; and that her actual state did not promise much for all she had to tell of what had gone before. At certain times too, when things present themselves in their least roseate garb, notably on waking in the morning, for instance, he allowed, to himself, that he was making a fool of himself; but the confidence extended no farther. And then, as the day grew, and the sun came out, and he touched up his picture, and thought of the commissions Mr. Stompff had promised him, he became brighter and more hopeful, and he allowed his thoughts to feast on the figure then awaiting him in Little Flotsam Street, and he put by his sheaf of brushes and his palette, and went up and examined himself in the glass over the mantelpiece. He had caught himself doing this very frequently within the last few days, and, half-chuckling inwardly, had acknowledged that it was a bad sign. But though he laughed, he tweaked out the most prominent gray hairs in his beard, and gave his necktie a more knowing twist, and removed the dabs of stray paint from his shooting-coat. Straws thrown up show which way the wind blows, and even such little sacrifices to vanity as these were in Geoffrey Ludlow very strong signs indeed.
He had paid three visits to Little Flotsam Street; and on the fourth morning, after a very poor pretence of work, he was at the looking-glass settling himself preparatory to again setting out. Ever since that midnight adventure after the Titians meeting, Geoffrey had felt it impossible to take his usual daily spell at the easel, had not done five-pounds' worth of real work in the whole time, had sketched-in and taken out, and pottered, and smoked over his canvas, perfectly conscious that he was doing no good, utterly unable to do any better. On this fourth morning he had been even more unsuccessful than usual; he was highly nervous; he could not even set his palette properly, and by no manner of means could he apply his thoughts to his work. He had had a bad night; that is, he had woke with a feeling that this kind of penny-journal romance, wherein a man finds a starving girl in the streets and falls desperately in love with her, could go on no longer in London and in the nineteenth century. She was better now, probably strong enough to get about; he would learn her history, so much of it at least as she liked to tell; and putting her in some way of earning an honest livelihood, take his leave of her, and dismiss her from his thoughts.
He arrived at this determination in his studio; he kept it as he walked through the streets; he wavered horribly when he came within sight of the door; and by the time he knocked he had resolved to let matters take their chance, and to act as occasion might suggest. It was not Mrs. Flexor who opened the door to him, but that worthy woman's youngest plague, Reg'las, who, with a brown eruption produced by liquorice round his lips, nodded his head, and calmly invited the visitor, as he would have done any one else, to "go up 'tairs." Geoffrey entered, patted the boy's head, and stopped at the parlour-door, at which he gave a low rap, and immediately turning the handle, walked in.
She was lying as usual on the sofa, immediately opposite the door; but, what he had never seen before, her hair was freed from the confining comb, and was hanging in full luxuriance over her shoulders. Great heavens, how beautiful she looked! There had been a certain piquancy andchicin her appearance when her hair had been taken saucily off her face and behind her ears; but they were nothing as compared to the profound expression of calm holy resignation in that dead-white face set in that deep dead-gold frame of hair. Geoff started when he saw it; was it a Madonna of Raphael's, or a St. Teresa of Guido's, which flashed across his mind? And as he looked she raised her eyes, and a soft rosy flush spread over her face, and melted as quickly as it came. He seated himself on a chair by her side as usual, and took her hand as usual, the blood tingling in his fingers as he touched hers--as usual. She was the first to speak.
"You are very early this morning. I scarcely expected you so soon--as you may see;" and with a renewed flush she took up the ends of her hair, and was about to twist them up, when Geoffrey stopped her.
"Leave it as it is," said he in a low tone; "it could not be better; leave it as it is."
She looked at him as he spoke; not a full straight glance, but through half-closed lids; a prolonged gaze,--half-dreamy, half-intense; then released her hair, and let it again fall over her shoulders in a rich red cloud.
"You are much better?"
"Thanks to you, very much; thanks to you!" and her little hand came out frankly, and was speedily swallowed up in his big palm.
"No thanks at all; that is--well, you know. Let us change the subject. I came to say--that--that--"
"You hesitate because you are afraid of hurting my feelings. I think I can understand. I have learnt the world--God knows in no easy school; you came to say that I had been long enough a pensioner on your charity, and now must make my own way. Isn't that it?"
"No, indeed; not, that is not entirely what I meant. You see--our meeting--so strange--"
"Strange enough for London and this present day. You found me starving, dying, and you took care of me; and you knew nothing of me--not even my name--not even my appearance."
There was a something harsh and bitter in her tone which Geoffrey had never remarked before. It jarred on his ear; but he did not further notice it. His eyes dropped a little as he said, "No, I didn't; I do not know your name."
She looked up at him from under her eyelids; and the harshness had all faded out of her voice as she said, "My name is Margaret Dacre." She stopped, and looked at him; but his face only wore its grave honest smile. Then she suddenly raised herself on the sofa, and looking straight into his face, said hurriedly, "You are a kind man, Mr. Ludlow; a kind, generous, honourable man; there are many men would have given me food and shelter--there are very few who would have done it unquestioning, as you have."
"You were my guest, Miss Dacre, and that was enough, though the temptation was strong. How one evidently born and bred a lady could have--"
"Ah, now," said she, smiling fainting, "you are throwing off your bonds, and all man's curiosity is at work."
"No, on my honour; but--I don't know whether you know, but any one acquainted with the world would see that--gad! I scarcely know how to put it--but--fact is, that--people would scarcely understand--you must excuse me, but--but the position, Miss Dacre!" and Geoff pushed his hands through his hair, and knew that his cheeks were flaming.
"I see what you mean," said she, "and you are only explaining what I have for the last day or two felt myself; that the--the position must be altered. But you have so far been my friend, Mr. Ludlow--for I suppose the preserver of one's life is to be looked upon as a friend, at all events as one actuated by friendly motives--that I must ask you to advise me how to support it."
"It would be impossible to advise unless--I mean, unless one knew, or had some idea--what, in fact, one had been accustomed to."
The girl sat up on the sofa, and this time looked him steadily in the face for a minute or so. Then she said, in a calm unbroken voice, "You are coming to what I knew must arise, to what is always asked, but what I hitherto have always refused to tell. You, however, have a claim to know--what I suppose people would call my history." Her thin lips were tightly pressed and her nostrils curved in scorn as she said these words. Geoffrey marked the change, and spoke out at once, all his usual hesitation succumbing before his earnestness of purpose.
"I have asked nothing," said he; "please to remember that; and further, I wish to hear nothing. You are my guest for so long as it pleases you to remain in that position. When you wish to go, you will do so, regretted but certainly unquestioned." If Geoffrey Ludlow ever looked handsome, it was at this moment. He was a little nettled at being suspected of patronage, and the annoyance flushed his cheek and fired his eyes.
"Then I am to be a kind of heroine of a German fairytale; to appear, to sojourn for a while--then to fade away and never to be heard of ever after, save by the good fortune which I leave behind me to him who had entertained an angel unawares. Not the last part of the story, I fear, Mr. Ludlow; nor indeed any part of it. I have accepted your kindness; I am grateful--God knows how grateful for it--and now, being strong again--you need not raise your eyebrows; I am strong, am I not, compared with the feeble creature you found in the streets?--I will fade away, leaving gratitude and blessings behind me."
"But what do you intend to do?"
"Ah! there you probe me beyond any possibility of reply. I shall--"
"I--I have a notion, Miss Dacre, just come upon me. It was seeing you with your hair down--at least, I think it was--suggested it; but I'm sure it's a good one. To sit, you know, as a model--of course I mean your face, you know, and hair, and all that sort of thing, so much in vogue just now; and so many fellows would be delighted to get studies of you--the pre-Raphaelite fellows, you know; and it isn't much--the pay, you know: but when one gets a connexion--and I'm sure that I could recommend--O, no end of fellows." It was not that this was rather a longer speech than usual that made Geoffrey terminate it abruptly; it was the expression in Margaret Dacre's gray eyes.
"Do you think I could become a model, Mr. Ludlow--at the beck and call of every man who chose to offer me so much per hour? Would you wish to see me thus?" and as she said the last words she knit her brows, leaning forward and looking straight at him under her drooping lids.
Geoffrey's eyes fell before that peculiar glance, and he pushed his hands through his hair in sheer doubtful desperation.
"No!" he said, after a minute's pause "it wouldn't do. I hadn't thought of that. You see, I--O by Jove, another idea! You play? Yes, I knew you did by the look of your hands! and talk French and German, I daresay? Ah, I thought so! Well, you know, I give lessons in some capital families--drawing and water-colour sketching--and I'm constantly asked if I know of governesses. Now what's to prevent my recommending you?"
"What, indeed? You have known me so long! You are so thoroughly acquainted with my capabilities--so persuaded of my respectability!"
The curved lips, the petulant nostril, the harsh bitter voice again! Geoff winced under them. "I think you are a little prejudiced," he began. "A little--"
"A little nothing! Listen, Mr. Ludlow! You have saved me from death, and you are kind enough to wish me, under your auspices, to begin life again. Hear, first, what was my former life. Hear it, and then see the soundness of your well-intentioned plans. My father was an infantry captain, who was killed in the Crimea. After the news came of his death, my mother's friends, wealthy tradespeople, raised a subscription to pay her an annuity of 150l, on condition of her never troubling them again. She accepted this, and she and I went to live for cheapness at Tenby in Wales. There was no break in my life until two years since, when I was eighteen years old. Up to that time, school, constant practice at home (for I determined to be well educated), and attendance on my mother, an invalid, formed my life. Then came the usual character--without which the drama of woman's life is incomplete--a man!"
She hesitated for a moment, and looked up as Geoffrey Ludlow leaned forward, breathing thickly through his nostrils; then she continued--
"This one was a soldier, and claimed acquaintance with a dead comrade's widow; had his claim allowed, and came to us morning, noon, and night. A man of the world, they called him; could sit and talk with my mother of her husband's virtues and still-remembered name, and press my hand, and gaze into my eyes, and whisper in my ear whenever her head was turned."
"And you?"
"And I! What would a girl do, brought up at a sleepy watering-place, and seeing nobody but the curate or the doctor? I listened to his every word, I believed his every look; and when he said to me, 'On such a night fly with me,' I fled with him without remorse."
Geoffrey Ludlow must have anticipated something of this kind, and yet when he heard it, he dropped his head and shook it, as though under the effect of a staggering blow. The action was not unnoticed by Margaret.
"Ah," said she, in low tones and with a sad smile, "I saw how your schemes would melt away before my story."
This time it was his hand that came out and caught hers in its grip.
"Ah, wait until you have heard the end, now very close at hand. The old, old story: a coming marriage, which never came, protracted and deferred now for one excuse, now for another--the fear of friends, the waiting for promotion, the--ah, every note in the whole gamut of lies! And then--"
"Spare yourself and me--I know enough!"
"No; hear it out! It is due to you, it is due to me. A sojourn in Italy, a sojourn in England--gradual coolness, final flight. But such flight! One line to say that he was ruined, and would not drag me down in his degradation--no hope of a future meeting--no provision for present want. I lived for a time by the sale of what he had given me,--first jewels, then luxuries, then--clothes. And then, just as I dropped into death's jaws, you found me."
"Thank God!" said Geoffrey earnestly, still retaining the little hand within his own; "thank God! I can hear no more to-day--yes; one thing, his name?"
"His name," said she, with fixed eyes, "I have never mentioned to mortal; but to you I will tell it. His name was Leonard Brookfield."
"Leonard Brookfield," repeated Geoffrey. "I shall not forget it. Now adieu! We shall meet to-morrow."
He bowed over her hand and pressed it to his lips, then was gone; but as his figure passed the window, she raised herself upright, and ere he vanished from her sight, from between her compressed lips came the words, "At last! at last!"