I do not exactly know why I sit down to make this my last confession. I can scarcely be a guide to any one. I even doubt if I can be a warning, for when a man is as miserably unlucky as I have proved myself, the natural inference is to regard him as the exception to the ordinary lot of mortals,—a craft fated to founder ere it was launched. It's all very well to deny the existence of such a thing as luck. It sounds splendidly wise in the Latin moralist to say, “Non numen habes fortuna si sit prudentia,” which is the old story of putting the salt on the bird's tail over again, since, I say, we can always assume the “prudentia” where there is the “fortuna,” and in the same way declare that the unlucky man failed because he was deficient in that same gift of foresight.
Few men knew life so thoroughly in every condition, and under every aspect, as the first Napoleon, and he invariably asked, when inquiring into the fitness of a man for a great command, “Is he lucky?” To my own thinking, it would be as truthful to declare that there was no element of luck in whist, as to say there was no such thing as luck in life. Now, all the “prudentia” in the world will not give a man four by honors; and though a good player may make a better fight with a bad hand than an indifferent performer, there is that amount of badness occasionally dealt out that no skill can compensate; and do what he may, he must lose the game.
Now, I am by no means about to set up as a model of prudence, industry, or perseverance; as little can I lay claim to anything like natural ability or cleverness. I am essentially common-place,—one of those men taken “ex medio acervo” of humanity, whose best boast is that they form the staple of the race, and are the majority in all nations.
There is a very pleasant passage in Lockhart's Life of Scott. I cannot lay my hand on it, and may spoil it in the attempt to quote, but the purport is, that one day when Lockhart had used the word “vulgar” in criticising the manners of some people they had been discussing, Sir Walter rebuked him for the mistaken sense he had ascribed to the expression. Vulgar, said he, is only common, and common means general; and what is the general habit and usage of mankind has its base and foundation in a feeling and sentiment that we must not lightly censure. It is, at all events, human.
I wish I could give the text of the passage, for I see how lamentably I have rendered it, but this was the meaning it conveyed to me, and I own I have very often thought over it with comfort and with gratitude.
If the great thinkers—the men of lofty intellects and high-soaring faculties—were but to know how, in vindicating the claims of every-day people to respect and regard, in shielding them from the sneers of smart men and the quips of witty men, they were doing a great and noble work, for which millions of people like myself would bless them, I am certain we should find many more such kindly utterances as that of the great Sir Walter.
I ask pardon for my digression, so selfish as it is, and return to my narrative.
After that famous “fiasco” I made in Ireland, I—as the cant phrase has it—got dark for some time. My temper, which at first sustained me under any amount of banter and ridicule, had begun to give way, and I avoided my relations, who certainly never took any peculiar pains to treat me with delicacy, or had the slightest hesitation in making me a butt for very coarse jokes and very contemptible drollery.
I tried a number of things,—that is, I begun them. I begun to read for the law; I begun a novel; I begun to attend divinity lectures; I got a clerkship in a public office, as supernumerary; I was employed as traveller to a house in the wooden-clock trade; I was secretary to an Association for the Protection of Domestic Cats, and wrote the prospectus for the “Cats' Home:” but it's no use entering into details. I failed in all; and to such an extent of notoriety had my ill-fortune now attained, that the very mention of my name in connection with a new project would have sentenced it at once to ruin.
Over and over again have I heard my “friends,” when whispering together over some new scheme, mutter, “Of course Paul is to have nothing to do with it,” “Take care that Paul Gosslett is n't in it,” and such-like intimations, that gave me the sensation of being a sort of moral leper, whose mere presence was a calamity. The sense of being deemed universally an unlucky fellow is one of the most depressing things imaginable,—to feel that your presence is accounted an evil agency,—and that your co-operation foreshadows failure,—goes a considerable way towards accomplishing the prediction announced.
Though my uncle's stereotyped recommendation to become a coal-heaver was not exactly to my taste, I had serious thoughts of buying a sack, and by a little private practice discovering whether the profession might not in the end become endurable. I was fairly at my wits'-end for a livelihood; and the depression and misery my presence occasioned wherever I went reacted on myself, and almost drove me to desperation.
I was actually so afraid of an evil temptation that I gave up my little lodging that I was so fond of, near Putney, and went to live at Hampstead, where there was no water deep enough to drown a rat. I also forewent shaving, that I might banish my razors, and in all respects set myself steadily to meet the accidents of life with as near an approach to jollity as I could muster.
The simple pleasures of nature—the enjoyment of the fields and the wild flowers; the calm contemplation of the rising or setting sun; the varied forms of insect life; the many-tinted lichens; the ferns; the mosses that clothe the banks of shady alleys; the limpid pools, starred and broken by the dragon-fly, so full of their own especial charm for the weary voluptuary sick of pampered pleasures and exotic luxuries—do not appeal to the senses of the poor man with that wonderful force of contrast which gives them all their excellence. I have seen an alderman express himself in ecstasies over a roast potato, which certainly would not have called forth the same show of appreciation from an Irish peasant. We like what awakens a new sensation in us, what withdraws us even in imagination from the routine of our daily lives. There is a great self-esteem gratified when we say how simple we can be, how happy in humility, how easily satisfied, and how little dependent on mere luxury or wealth.
The postman who passed my window every morning had long ceased to be an object of interest or anxiety to me; for others he brought tidings, good or ill as it might be, but to me, forgotten and ignored of the world, no news ever came; when one day, to my intense surprise, at first to my perfect incredulity, I saw him draw forth a letter, and make a sign to me to come down and take it. Yes, there it was, “Paul Gosslett, Esq., The Flaggers, Putney,” with “Try Sandpit Cottages, Hampstead,” in another hand, in the corner. It was from my aunt, and ran thus:—
“The Briars, Rochester.
“Dear Paul,—I am rejoiced to say there is a good chance of a situation for you with handsome pay and most agreeable duty. You are to come down here at once, and see your uncle, but on no account let it be known that I have mentioned to you the prospect of employment.
“Your affectionate aunt,
“Jane Morse.”
I took the morning train, and arrived at Rochester by nine o'clock, remembering, not without pain, my last experiences of my uncle's hospitality. I breakfasted at the inn, and only arrived at the house when he had finished his morning meal, and was smoking his pipe in the garden.
“What wind blows you down here, lad?” cried he. “Where are you bound for now?”
“You forget, my dear,” said my aunt, “you told me, the other evening, you would be glad to see Paul.”
“Humph!” said he, with a grunt. “I 've been a-think-ing over it since, and I suspect it would n't do. He 'd be making a mess of it, the way he does of everything; that blessed luck of his never leaves him, eh?”
Seeing that this was meant as an interrogation, I replied faintly: “You 're quite right, uncle. If I am to depend on my good fortune, it will be a bad look-out for me.”
“Not that I value what is called luck a rush,” cried he, with energy. “I have had luck, but I had energy, industry, thrift, and perseverance. If I had waited for luck, I 'd have lived pretty much like yourself, and I don't know anything to be very proud of in that, eh?”
“I am certainly not proud of my position, sir.”
“I don't understand what you mean by your position; but I know I 'd have been a coal-heaver rather than live on my relations. I 'd have sold sulphur matches, I 'd have been a porter!”
“Well, sir, I suppose I may come to something of that kind yet; a little more of the courteous language I am now listening to will make the step less difficult.”
“Eh?—What! I don't comprehend. Do you mean anything offensive?”
“No, dear, he does not,” broke in my aunt; “he only says he 'd do anything rather than be a burden to his family, and I 'm sure he would; he seems very sorry about all the trouble he has cost them.”
My uncle smoked on for several minutes without a word; at last he came to the end of his pipe, and, having emptied the ashes, and gazed ruefully at the bowl, he said: “There 's no more in the fellow than in that pipe! Not a bit. I say,” cried he, aloud, and turning to me, “you've had to my own knowledge as good as a dozen chances, and you've never succeeded in one of them.”
“It's all true,” said I, sorrowfully.
“Owing to luck, of course,” said he, scornfully; “luck makes a man lazy, keeps him in bed when he ought to be up and at work; luck makes him idle, and gets him plucked for his examinations. I tell you this, sir: I 'd rather a man would give me a fillip on the nose than talk to me about luck. If there's a word in the language I detest and hate, it is luck.”
“I'm not in love with it myself, sir,” said I, trying to smile.
“Did you ever hear of luck mending a man's shoes or paying his washerwoman? Did luck ever buy a beefsteak, eh?”
“That might admit of discussion.”
“Then let me have no discussion. I like work, and I dislike wrangling. Listen to me, and mend now, sir. I want an honest, sober, fixed determination,—no caprice, no passing fancy. Do you believe you are capable of turning over a new leaf, and sitting down steadily to the business of life, like a patient, industrious, respectable man who desires to earn his own bread, and not live on the earnings of others?”
“I hope so.” “Don't tell me of hope, sir. Say you will, or you will not”
“I will,” said I, resolutely.
“You will work hard, rise early, live frugally, give up dreaming about this, that, or the other chance, and set to like a fellow that wants to do his own work with his own hands?”
“I promise it all.”
My uncle was neither an agreeable nor a very clear exponent of his views, and I shall save my reader and myself some time and unpleasantness if I reduce the statement he made to me to a few words. A company had been formed to start an hydropathic establishment on a small river, a tributary of the Rhine,—the Lahn. They had acquired, at a very cheap rate of purchase, an old feudal castle and its surrounding grounds, and had converted the building into a most complete and commodious residence, and the part which bordered the river into a beautiful pleasure-ground. The tinted drawings which represented various views of the castle and the terraced gardens, were something little short of fairyland in captivation. Nor was the pictorial effect lessened by the fact that figures on horseback and on foot, disporting in boats or driving in carriages, gave a life and movement to the scene, and imparted to it the animation and enjoyment of actual existence. The place of director was vacant, and I was to be appointed to it. My salary was to be three hundred a year, but my table, my horses, my servants,—in fact, all my household, were to be maintained for me on a liberal scale; and my duties were to be pretty much what I pleased to make them. My small smattering of two or three languages—exalted by my uncle into the reputation of a polyglot—had recommended me to the “Direction;” and as my chief function was to entertain a certain number of people twice or thrice a week at dinner, and suggest amusements to fill up their time, it was believed that my faculties were up to the level of such small requirements.
From the doctor down to the humblest menial all were to be under my sway; and as the establishment numbered above a hundred officials, the command was extensive, if not very dignified. I will own, frankly, I was out of myself with joy at the prospect; nor could all the lowering suggestions of my uncle, and the vulgar cautions he instilled, prevent my feeling delighted with my good fortune. I need not say what resolves I made; what oaths I registered in my own heart to be a good and faithful steward, and while enjoying to the full the happiness of my fortunate existence, to neglect no item of the interests confided to me.
All that I had imagined or dreamed of the place itself was as nothing to the reality; nor shall I ever forget the sense of overwhelming delight in which I stood on the crest of the hill that looked down over the wooded glen and winding river, the deep-bosomed woods, the wandering paths of lawn or of moss, the gently flowing stream in which the castle, with its tall towers, was tremblingly reflected, seemed to me like a princely possession, and, for once, I thought that Paul Gosslett had become the favorite child of fortune, and asked myself what had I done to deserve such luck as this?
If habit and daily use deaden the pangs of suffering, and enable us to bear with more of patience the sorrows of adverse fortune, they, on the other hand, serve to dull the generous warmth of that gratitude we first feel for benefits, and render us comparatively indifferent to enjoyments which, when first tasted, seemed the very ecstasy of bliss. I am sorry to make this confession; sorry to admit that after some months at “Lahneck,” I was, although very happy and satisfied, by no means so much struck by the beauty of the place and the loveliness of the scenery as on my first arrival, and listened to the raptures of the newcomers with a sort of compassionate astonishment. Not but I was proud of the pretentious edifice, proud of its lofty towers and battlemented terraces, its immense proportion, and splendid extent. It was, besides, a complete success as an enterprise. We were always full; applications for rooms poured in incessantly, and when persons vacated their quarters, any change of mind made restitution impossible. I believed I liked the despotism I exercised; it was a small, commonplace sort of sovereignty over bath-men and kitchen-folk, it is true; but in the extent of my command I discovered a kind of dignity, and in the implicit obedience and deference I felt something like princely sway.
As the host, too, I received a very flattering amount of homage; foreigners always yield a willing respect to anything in authority, and my own countrymen soon caught up the habit, as though it implied a knowledge of life and the world. I had not the slightest suspicion that my general manners or bearing were becoming affected by these deferences, till I accidentally overheard a Cockney observe to his wife, “I think he's pompious,” a censure that made me very unhappy, and led me to much self-examination and reflection.
Had I really grown what the worthy citizen called “pom-pious,”—had I become puffed up by prosperity, and over-exalted in self-conceit? If so, it were time to look to this at once.
The directors, generally, were well pleased with me. Very gratifying testimonials of their approval reached me; and it was only my uncle's opposition prevented my salary being augmented. “Don't spoil the fellow,” he said; “you'll have him betting on the Derby, or keeping a yacht at Cowes, if you don't look out sharp. I 'd rather cut him down a hundred than advance him fifty.” This fiat from my own flesh and blood decided the matter. I sulked on this. I had grown prosperous enough to feel indignant, and I resolved to afford myself the well-to-do luxury of discontent. I was, therefore, discontented. I professed that to maintain my position—whatever that meant—I was obliged to draw upon my own private resources; and I went so far as to intimate to the visitors that if I had n't been a man of some fortune the place would be my ruin! Of course my hint got bruited about, and the people commonly said, “If Gosslett goes, the whole concern will break up. They 'll not easily find a man of good private fortune, willing to spend his money here, like Gosslett,” and such like, till I vow and declare I began to believe my own fiction, and regard it as an indelible fact. If my letter was not on record, I would not now believe the fact; but the document exists, and I have seen it, where I actually threaten to send my resignation if something—I forget what—is not speedily conceded to my demands; and it was only on receiving an admonition in the mild vein peculiar to my uncle that I awoke to a sense of my peril, and of what became me.
I know that there are critics who, pronouncing upon this part of my career, will opine that the Cockney was right, and that I had really lost my head in my prosperity. I am not disposed to say now that there might not have been some truth in this judgment. Things are generally going on tolerably well with a man's material interests when he has time to be dyspeptic. Doctors assure us that savage nations, amidst whom the wants of life call for daily, hourly efforts, amidst whom all is exigency, activity, and resource, have no dyspepsia. If, then, I had reasoned on my condition,—which I did not,—I should have seen that the world went too smoothly with me, and that, in consequence, my health suffered. Just as the fish swallow stones to aid the digestion, we need the accidents and frictions of life to triturate our moral pabulum, and render it more easily assimilable to our constitutions. With dyspepsia I grew dull, dispirited, and dissatisfied. I ceased to take pleasure in all that formerly had interested me. I neglected duty, and regarded my occupation with dislike. My house dinners, which once I took an especial pride in, seeking not only that the wines and the cookery should be excellent, but that their success as social gatherings should attract notoriety, I now regarded with apathy. I took no pains about either company or cookery, and, in consequence, contrarieties and bad contrasts now prevailed, where, before, all had been in perfect keeping and true artistic shading. My indolence and indifference extended to those beneath me. Where all had once been order, discipline, and propriety, there now grew up carelessness, disorder, and neglect. The complaints of the visitors were incessant. My mornings were passed in reading. I rarely replied to the representations and demands of outraged guests. At last the public press became the channel of these complaints; and “Publicola,” and “One who had Suffered,” and a number of similarly named patriots declared that the hydropathic establishment at Lahneck was a delusion and a sham; that it was a camp of confusion and mismanagement; and that though a certain P. Gosslett was the nominal director, yet that visitors of three months' standing averred they had never seen him, and the popular belief was that he was a nervous invalid who accepted a nominal duty in recompense for the benefit of air and climate to himself. “How,” wrote one indignant correspondent of the Times,—“how the company who instituted this enterprise, and started it on a scale of really great proportions, can find it to their advantage to continue this Mr. Gosslett in a post he so inadequately fills, is matter of daily astonishment to those who have repaired to Lahneck for healthful exercise and amusement, and only found there indifferent attendance and universal inattention.”
From the day this appeared I was peppered at every post with letters from the secretary, demanding explanations, reports, returns, what not. The phrase, “The Managing Committee, who are hourly less and less satisfied with Mr. Gosslett's conduct,” used to pass through all my dreams.
As for my uncle, his remarks were less measured. One of his epistles—I have it still by me—runs thus: “What do you mean? Are you only an idiot, or is there some deeper rascality under all this misconduct? Before I resigned my place at the Board, yesterday, I gave it as my deliberate opinion that a warrant should be issued against you for fraud and malversation, and that I would hail your conviction as the only solace this nefarious concern could afford me. Never dare to address me again. I have forbidden your aunt to utter your name in my presence.”
I don't know how it was, but I read this with as much unconcern as though it had been an advertisement about the Sydenham trousers or Glenfield starch. There must be a great dignity in a deranged digestion, for it certainly raises one above all the smaller excitements and conditions of passing events; and when, on the same morning that this epistle arrived, the steward came to inform me that of three hundred and twenty-four rooms twelve only were occupied, though this was what would be called the height of the season, I blandly remarked, “Let us not be impatient, Mr. Deechworth, they'll come yet.” This was in June; by July the twelve diminished to eight. No new arrival came; and as August drew to a close we had three! All September,—and the place was then in full beauty,—the mountains glowing with purple and scarlet heath, the cactus plants on the terrace in blossom, the Virginian acanthus hanging in tangled masses of gorgeous flowers from every tree, the river ever plashing with the leaping trout,—we had not one stranger within our gates. My morning report ran, “Arrivals, none; departures, none; present in house, none;” and when I put “Paul Gosslett” at the bottom of this, I only wonder why I did not take a header into the Lahn!
As we had at this period eighty-four servants in the house, sixteen horses in the stables, and a staff of thirty-two gardeners and boatmen, not to speak of runners, commissionaires, and general loungers, I was not amazed when a telegram came, in these words: “Close the house, place Deechworth in charge, and come over to London.” To this I replied, “Telegram received; compliance most undesirable. Autumn season just opening. Place in full beauty.—P. G.” I will not weary the reader with a mere commercial wrangle,—how the Committee reproached me, and how I rejoined; how they called names, and I hinted at defamation; how they issued an order for my dismissal, and I demurred, and demanded due notice. We abused each other all September, and opened October in full cry of mutual attack and defence. By this time, too, we were at law. They applied for a “mandamus” to get rid of me, and my counsel argued that I was without the four seas of the realm, and could not be attacked. They tried to reach me by the statute of frauds; but there was no treaty with Nassau, and I could not be touched. All this contention and quarrelling was like sulphate of quinine to me,—I grew robust and strong under the excitement, and discovered a lightness of heart and a buoyancy of nature I had believed had long left me forever; and though they stopped my salary and dishonored my drafts, I lived on fruit and vegetables, and put the garrison on the same diet, with a liberal allowance of wine, which more than reconciled them to the system.
So matters went on till the ninth of October,—a memorable day to me, which I am not like to forget. It was near sunset, and I sat on the terrace, enjoying the delicious softness of the evening air, and watching the varying tints on the river, as the golden and green light came slanting through the trees and fell upon the water, when I heard the sound of wheels approaching. There had been a time when such sounds would have awakened no attention, when arrivals poured in incessantly, and the coming or the departing guest evoked nothing beyond the courtesy of a greeting. Now, however, a visitor was an event; and as the post-horses swept round the angle of the wood, and disappeared behind a wing of the castle, I felt a strange sensation through my heart, and a soft voice seemed to say, “Paul, Fate is dealing with you now.” I fell into a revery, however, and soon forgot all about the arrival, till Mr. Deech-worth came up with a card in his hand. “Do you know this name, sir,—Mrs. Pultney Dacre? She has only her maid with her, but seems a person of condition.” I shook my head in ignorance of the name, and he went on: “She wants rooms on the ground floor, where she can walk out into the garden; and I have thought of No. 4.”
“No. 4, Deechworth? that apartment costs sixty francs a day.”
“Well, sir, as there are few people now in the house,”—this was an euphemism for none,—“I have said she might have the rooms for forty.”
“It may be done for one week,” said I, “but take care to caution her not to mention it to her friends. We have trouble enough with those tiresome people in London without this. What is she like?”
“A very handsome figure, sir; evidently young; but had a double veil down, and I could n't see her face.”
“How long does she talk of staying?”
“A month, sir. A husband is expected back from India early in November, and she is to wait for him here.”
“So,” said I, thoughtfully, and I am sure I cannot say why thoughtfully, “she is waiting for her husband's arrival.”
“Those young women whose husbands are in India are always pretty; haven't you remarked that, sir?”
“I can't say that I have, Deechworth. These are speculations of a kind that do not occur to me. Let her have No. 4;” and with the air of one who dismissed the theme, I waved my hand, and sent him away.
No. 4—for so the occupant was called, her name being entirely merged in her number—never appeared in the grounds, nor showed in any way. The small garden which belonged to her apartment had a separate enclosure of its own, and within this she walked every evening. How she passed her days I know not. I was told that she sang like an angel, but I never heard her. She was, however, a most persistent bather. There was not a douche in the establishment she did not try, and possibly, by way of pastime, she was constantly experimenting on new modes and fashions of bathing.
When the establishment had been crowded and in full work, I had my time so completely occupied that I had little difficulty in keeping my mind estranged from the gossip and tittle-tattle which beset such places; but now, when the roof sheltered a single guest, it was wonderful how, in spite of all my determination on the subject, I became perversely uneasy to hear about her; to know whether she read or wrote; whether she got letters or answered them; what she thought of the place; whether she was or was not pleased with it; did she praise the camellias? What did she think of the cook? She was evidently “gourmet,” and the little dinners she ordered were remarkable for a taste and piquancy that stimulated my curiosity; for there is something very significant in this phase of the feminine nature; and when I heard she liked her ortolans “au beurre d'anchois,” I confess I wanted much to see her.
This, evidently, was not an easy matter, for she courted retirement, and her maid let it be known that if her mistress found herself in the slightest degree molested by strangers, or her privacy invaded, she would order her horses, and set off for somewhere else without a moment's hesitation. I was obliged, therefore, to respect this intimation. First of all, I felt that as long as No. 4 remained I was sustained in my resolve not to close the establishment. I was like a deposed monarch at whose residence one envoy still remained, and whose sovereignty, therefore, was yet recognized, and I clung to this last link that united me to the world of material interest with intense eagerness.
I ventured to present Mr. Gosslett's respectful compliments in a small note, and inquire if Mrs. Pultney Dacre would wish to see the Park, in which case his phaeton and ponies were always at her disposal, as also his boat if she felt disposed to take an airing on the river; but a few lines declined these offers,—in very polite terms, it is true, yet in a fashion that said, “No more of these attentions, Paul,”—at least, it was thus I read her.
Although my contention with the company still continued, and some new menace of law was sure to reach me by every second post, and my own counsel feelingly warned me that I had n't an inch of ground to stand on, and my costs when “cast” would be something overwhelming, I had steeled myself so thoroughly to all consequences, had so resolved to make the most of the present, that I read these minatory documents with an unmoved heart, and a degree of placid composure that now strikes me as something heroic.
I was sitting one evening in study, thinking over these things,—not depressively, not desperately; for, strangely enough, since misfortune had befallen me, I had acquired a most wonderful stock of equanimity; but I was canvassing with myself what was to come next, when the fatal hour struck, as strike it must, that sounded my expulsion from Eden, when a gentle tap came to my door. I said, “Come in;” and Virginie, Mrs. Dacre's French maid, entered. She was profuse of apologies for “deranging” me. She was in despair at the bare thought of interrupting I do not know what or which of my learned occupations, but her mistress had had an accident!
“An accident!” I started as I repeated the word.
“Oh! it was not serious,” she said, with a sweet smile. “It was only troublesome, as occurring in a remote spot, and to a person who, like Madame, was of such refined delicacy, and who could not bear consulting a strange physician,—her own doctor was on his way from India,”—she went on rambling thus, so that it was with difficulty I learned at last, that Madame, when feeding the gold-fish in the pond of the garden, had stepped on the rock-work and turned her ankle. The pain was very great, and Virginie feared something had been broken, though Madame was certain it was a mere sprain; and now, as the doctor had been dismissed, Madame wished to know where medical advice could be soonest obtained. I at once declared I was fully competent to treat such an injury. I had studied surgery, and could certainly pronounce whether the case was a grave one or a mere passing accident. Virginie smiled dubiously.
“Monsieur was very young. Madame never consulted a doctor under fifty-five or sixty.”
“Possibly,” suggested I, “in an ordinary case, and where there were time and opportunity to choose; but here, and with an accident,—an accident that, if neglected or improperly treated—”
“Ah,mon Dieu!” cried she, “don't say it! Don't say there might be unhappy results; come at once and see her!” She almost dragged me along, such was her impatience, to her mistress's room; and in less than a minute I was standing beside a sofa in a half-darkened room, where a lady lay, her face closely veiled, and a large shawl so enveloping her that all guess as to her figure or probable age was impossible. A light cambric handkerchief was spread over one foot, which rested on a cushion, and this kerchief the maid hastily snatched away as I approached, saying,—“Monsieur is a doctor himself, Madame, and will cure you immediately.”
“Là!” cried she, pointing to the foot. “Là!”
And certainly I needed no more formal invitation to gaze on a foot and ankle of such faultless mould and symmetry as never, even in the Greek statues, had I seen equalled. Whether there had not been time for the process of inflammation to have set up swelling or disfigurement, or whether the injury itself had been less grave than might have been apprehended, I am not able to say; but the beautiful proportions of that rounded instep, the tapering of the foot, the hollowing of the sole, the slightly mottled marble of the flesh, the blue veins swelling through the transparent skin, were all uninjured and unmarred. Ivory itself could not have been more smoothly turned than the ankle, nor of a more dazzling whiteness. To have been permitted to kneel down and kiss that foot, I would have sworn myself her slave forever. I suppose I must have shown some signs of the rapture that was consuming me, for the maid said,—“What does the man mean? has he lost his senses?”
“I must examine the part,” said I; and, kneeling down, I proceeded with what I imagined to be a most chirurgical air, to investigate the injury. As a worshipper might have touched a holy relic, I suffered my hand to glide over that beautifully rounded instep, but all so delicately and gently that I could not say whether the thrill that touch sent through me was not the act of my own nerves. She seemed, however, to tremble; her foot moved slightly, and a gentle action of her shoulders, like a shudder, bespoke pain. It was the sort of movement that one might make in being tickled; and as great agony causes this movement occasionally, I said, “I trust I have not hurt you? I 'd not have done so for worlds.” She took her handkerchief and pressed it to her face, and I thought she sobbed; but she never said a word.
“Alors!” cried the maid. “What do you say is to be done?”
“Ice,” said I. “Iced water and perfect repose.”
“And where are we to get ice in this barbarous place?”
“Madame,” said I, “the place is less savage than you deem, and ice shall be procured. There is a monastery at Offenbach where they have ice throughout the year. I will despatch an estafette there at once.”
The lady bent forward, and whispered something in the maid's ear.
“Madame desires to thank you sincerely,” said the maid. “She is much impressed by your consideration and kindness.”
“I will return in a couple of hours,” said I, with a most doctorial sententiousness, and in reality eagerly desiring to be alone, and in the privacy of my own room, before I should break out in those wild ecstasies which I felt were struggling within me for utterance.
I sat down to make a clean breast of it in these confessions, but I must ask my reader to let me pass over unrecorded the extravagances I gave way to when once more alone.
There are men—I am one of them—who require, constitutionally require, to be in love. That necessity which Don Quixote proclaimed to be a condition of knightly existence,—the devotion to a mistress,—is an essential to certain natures. This species of temperament pertained to me in my boyhood. It has followed me through life with many pains and suffering, but also with great compensations. I have ever been a poor man,—my friends can tell that I have not been a lucky one,—and yet to be rich and fortunate together, I would not resign that ecstasy, that sentiment of love, which, though its object may have changed, has still power to warm up the embers of my heart, and send through me a glow that revives the days of my hot youth and my high hopes.
I was now in love, and cared as little for Boards of Directors and resolutions passed in committee as for the ordinances of the Grand Lama. It might rain mandamuses and warrants, they had no power to trouble me. As I wended my way to No. 4 with my bowl of ice, I felt like a votary bearing his offering to the shrine of his patron saint. My gift might lie on the altar, but the incense of my devotion soared up to heaven.
I would gladly have visited her every hour, but she would only permit me to come twice a day. I was also timid, and when Virginie said my ten minutes was up I was dismissed. I tried to bribe Virginie, but the unworthy creature imagined, with the levity of her nation, I had designs on her own affections, and threatened to denounce me to her mistress,—a menace which cost me much mortification and more money.
I don't know that the cure made great progress,—perhaps I have learned since why this was so; at all events, I pursued my treatment with assiduity, and was rewarded with a few soft-voiced words, as thus: “How kind you are!” “What a gentle hand you have!” “How pleasant that ice is!” At length she was able to move about the room. I wished to offer my arm, but she declined. Virginie was strong enough to support her. How I detested that woman! But for her, how many more opportunities had I enjoyed of offering small services and attentions! Her very presence was a perpetual restraint. She never took her eyes off me while I was in the room with her mistress,—black-beady, inexpressive eyes for the most part, but with something devilish in their inscrutability that always frightened me. That she saw the passion that was consuming me, that she read me in my alternate paroxysm of delight or despair, was plain enough to me; but I could not make her my friend. She would take my presents freely, but always with the air of one whose silence was worth buying at any price, but whose co-operation or assistance no sum could compass. Her very mode of accepting my gifts had something that smote terror into me. She never thanked me, nor even affected gratitude. She would shake her head mournfully and gloomily, as though matters had come to a pretty pass between us, and as though some dreadful reckoning must one day be expected to account for all this corruption. “Ah, Monsieur Gosslett,” said she one day with a sigh, “what a precipice we are all standing beside! Have you thought of the ruin you are leading us to?” These were very strange words; and though I took my watch and chain from my pocket, and gave them to her in order to induce her to explain her meaning, she only burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Was I then the happiest of mortals or the most wretched? Such was the problem that drove sleep that long night from my eyelids, and found me still trying to solve it when the day broke.
Days would often pass now without Mrs. Dacre permitting me to visit her, and then Virginie significantly hinted that she was right in this,—that it was for my good as well as her own, and so on. I mourned over my banishment and bewailed it bitterly. “One would think, sir, you forget my mistress was married,” said Virginie to me one day; and I protest it was no more than the truth. I had completely, utterly forgotten it; and the stern fact thus abruptly announced almost felled me to the earth.
Mrs. Dacre had promised to take a drive with me as soon as she felt able to bear the motion of a carriage; but though I often recalled the pledge, she found excuses of one kind or other to defer performance, and as I now rarely saw her, she would write me a line, sometimes two lines, on a scrap of paper, which Virginie would lay open on my table and generally shake her head very meaningly as I read it.
If Mrs. Dacre's notes were very brief, they were not less enigmatical,—she was the strangest writer that ever put pen to paper. Thus, to give an instance: the ice application she always referred to as “my coldness,” and she would say, “How long is your coldness to continue? have I not had enough of it yet? This coldness is becoming tiresome, and if it be continued, how am I to go out with you?” In another note, referring to our intended drive, she says, “If it is a question of running away, I must have a word to say first; for though I believe you have no fears on that score, I am not so courageous.” Virginie had been telling stories about my ponies; they were frisky, it is true, and it was thus her mistress alluded to them. Some disparagement of me as a whip provoked this remark from her: “As the time draws nearer, I ask myself, Shall I trust myself to your guidance? Who can say what may come of it?”
At last came this one line: “I have summoned up all my courage, and I will go with you this evening. Come up at eight, and I will be ready.” I ought to have mentioned before this that for nigh three weeks a vulgar-looking man, middle-aged and robust, had come to take the waters; and though he only spoke a few words of bad French, being English, had continued to put himself on terms of intimacy with all the subordinates of the household, and was constantly seen laughing with the boatmen and trying to converse with the gardeners.
Deechworth had conceived suspicion about him from the first; he connected him with the law proceedings that the company had instituted against me, and warned me to be cautious of the man. His opinion was that he belonged to the “Force.” “I know it, sir,” said he, “by his walk and his laugh.” The detectives, according to Deechworth, have a laugh quite peculiar to themselves; it never takes them off what they are saying or thinking about In fact, it is like the bassoon in a band; it serves just to mark the time while the air is being played by the other instruments.
“I don't like that Mr. Bracken, sir,” Deechworth would say; “he ain't here for no good, you'll see, sir;” and it is not improbable that I should have perfectly agreed with this opinion if I had ever troubled my head about him at all, but the fact was my mind was very differently occupied. All Scotland Yard and Sir Richard himself might have been domiciled at the establishment without their ever giving me a moment of uneasy reflection.
Whether Mrs. Dacre's scruples were those of prudery or cowardice, whether she dreaded me as a companion or feared me as a coachman, I cannot say; but she constantly put off our intended drive, and though occasionally the few words in which she made her apologies set my heart half wild with delight, simply because I pleased to read them in a sense of my own invention, yet I grew feverish and uneasy at these delays. At last there came the one line in pencil, “I have made up my mind I will go with you to-morrow evening.” It is in no extravagance or mock rapture I say it, but in plain homely truth, I would not have changed that scrap of paper for a check of ten thousand on Coutts.
It was my habit to lay all the little notes I received from her before me on my writing-table, and as I passed them under review, to weave out for myself a story of the progress of my love. The servants who waited on me, and who alone entered my study, were foreigners, and ignorant of English, so that I could permit myself this indulgence without fear. Now, on the afternoon on which I had received the latest of her despatches, I sauntered out into the wood to be alone with my own thoughts, unmolested and undisturbed. I wandered on for hours, too happy to count the time, and too deeply lost in my imaginings to remember anything but my own fancies. What was to come of this strange imbroglio in which I now stood; how was Fate about to deal with me? I had clearly arrived at a point where the roads led right and left Which was I to take, and which was the right one?
Thus canvassing and discussing with myself, it was very late ere I got back to the castle; but I carried the key of a small portal gate that admitted me to my own quarters unobserved, and I could enter or pass out unnoticed. As I found myself in my study and lit my lamp, I turned to my writing-table. I started with amazement on discovering that the little notes and scraps of paper which bore Mrs. Dacre's writing had disappeared. These, and a small notebook, a sort of diary of my own, had been taken away; and that the act was not that of a common thief was clear, from the fact that a valuable silver inkstand and an onyx seal mounted in gold, and some other small objects of value lay about untouched. A cold sweat broke over me as I stood there overwhelmed and panic-stricken by this discovery. The terrors of a vague and undefined danger loom over a man with an intensity far greater than the fears of a known and palpable peril. I examined the fastenings of the door and the windows to see whether force had been used, but there was no sign of such. And as I had locked the door when leaving and found it locked on my return, how had this thief found entrance except by a key? I rung the bell; but the servants were all in bed, and it was long before any one replied to my summons. Of course, servant-like, they had seen nothing, heard nothing. I sent for Deechworth; he was asleep, and came unwillingly and angry at being routed out of bed. He, too, knew nothing. He questioned me closely as to whether I had seen the papers on my table before I left home for my walk, and half vexed me by the pertinacity of his examination, and, finally, by the way in which he depreciated the value of my loss, and congratulated me on the circumstance that nothing of real worth had been abstracted. This was too much for my patience, and I declared that I had rather the thief had left me without a coat or without a shilling than taken these precious scraps of paper. “Oh,” said he, with a sort of sneer, “I had not the slightest suspicion of the value you attached to them.” “Well, sir,” said I, losing all control over my passion, “now that you see it, now that you hear it, now that you know it, will you tell me at what price you will restore them to me?”
“You mean that it was I who took them?” said he, quietly, and without any show of warmth.
“I don't suppose you will deny it,” was my answer.
“That will do, Mr. Gosslett,” said he; “that's quite enough. I hope to be able to teach you that it's one thing to defy a board of directors, and it's another to defame a respectable man. I'll make you smart for this, sir;” and with these words he turned away and left the room.
I don't know when or how the servants retired,—whether I dismissed them, or whether they went of their own accord. I was like a madman. My temper, excited to the last limits of reason, impelled me to this or that act of insanity. At one moment I thought of hastening after Deechworth, and, with a revolver in my hand, compelling him to give up the stolen papers; and I shuddered as to what I should do if he refused. At another, I determined to follow him, and offer him everything I had in the world for them; for, all this time, I had worked myself up to the conviction that he, and he alone, was the thief. Oh, thought I, if I had but the aid of one of those clever fellows of the detective order, whose skill wants but the faintest clew to trace out these mysteries! and, suddenly, I bethought me of Mr. Bracken, whom Deechworth himself had pronounced to be “one of the Force.”
I rung my bell, and desired Mr. Bracken might be sent to me. The messenger was a long time absent, and came, at last, to say that Mr. Bracken had left the castle that evening, and taken all his luggage with him. The tidings struck me like a blow,—here, then, was the thief! And for what purpose could such a theft have been accomplished? “Tell Mr. Deechworth I want him,” cried I, being no less eager to make him my deepest apologies for my false accusation than to consult his strong common-sense in my difficulty.
The servant returned to say Mr. Deechworth had gone too. He had left the castle almost immediately after our stormy interview, and was already miles away on his road to the Rhine.
In my misery and desolation, in that abandonment to utter terror and confusion in which, with the drowning instinct, one snatches at straws, I sent to know if I could speak to Mrs. Dacre, or even her maid. How shall I describe my horror as I heard that they also were gone! They had left soon after Mr. Bracken; in fact, the post-horses that took them away had passed Mr. Bracken at the gate of the park.
I know no more how the rest of the night was passed by me, how the hours were spent till daybreak, than I could recount the incidents of delirium in fever. I must have had something like a paroxysm of insanity, for I appear to have rushed from room to room, calling for different people, and in tones of heart-rending entreaty begging that I might not be deserted. Towards morning I slept,—slept so soundly that the noises of the house did not disturb me. It was late in the afternoon when I awoke. The servant brought me my coffee and my letters; but I bade him leave me, and fell off to sleep again. In this way, and with only such sustenance as a cup of milk or coffee would afford, I passed fourteen days, my state resembling that of a man laboring under concussion of the brain; indeed, so closely did the symptoms resemble those of this affection, that the doctor carefully examined my head to see whether I had not incurred some actual injury. It was five weeks before I could leave my bed, and crawl down with difficulty to my study. The table was covered with the accumulated letters of thirty-odd posts, and I turned over the envelopes, most of which indicated communications from the company. There was also one in my uncle's hand. This I opened and read. It was in these words:—
“So, sir, not satisfied with a life of indolence and dependence, you have now added infamy to your worthlessness, and have not even spared the members of your own family the contagion of your vice. If you can give information as to the present abode of your wretched victim, do so, as the last amends in your power, and the last act of reparation, before you are consigned to that jail in which it is to be hoped you will end your days.”
I read this till my head reeled. Who were the members of my family I had contaminated or corrupted? Who was my wretched victim? And why I was to die in prison I knew not. And the only conclusion I could draw from it all was that my uncle was hopelessly mad, and ought to be shut up.
A strange-looking, coarse-papered document, that till then had escaped my notice, now caught my eye. It was headed “Court of Probate and Divorce,” and set forth that on a certain day in term the case of “MacNamaraversusMac-Namara, Gosslett, co-respondent,” would come on for trial; the action being to obtain a rulenisifor divorce, with damages against the co-respondent.
A notice of service, duly signed by one of my own people, lay beside this; so that at last I got a faint glimmering of what my uncle meant, and clearly descried what was im plied by my “victim.”
I believe that most readers of the “Times” or the “Morning Post” could finish my story; they, at all events, might detail the catastrophe with more patience and temper than I could. The MacNamara divorce was a nine-days' scandal. And “if the baseness of the black-hearted iniquity of the degraded creature who crept into a family as a supplicant that he might pollute it with dishonor; who tracked his victim, as the Indian tracks his enemy, from lair to lair,—silent, stealthily, and with savage intensity,—never faltering from any momentary pang of conscience, nor hesitating in his vile purpose from any passing gleam of virtue,—if this wretch, stigmatized by nature with a rotten heart, and branded by a name that will sound appropriately in the annals of crime, for he is called Gosslett,”—if all this, and a great deal more in the same fashion, is not familiar to the reader, it is because he has not carefully studied the Demosthenic orations of the Court of Arches. In one word, I was supposed to have engaged the affections and seduced the heart of Mrs. MacNamara, who was a cousin of my own, and the daughter of the Rev. W. Dudgeon, in whose house I had been “brought up,” &c. I had withdrawn her from her husband, and taken her to live with me at Lahneck under the name of Dacre, where our course of life—openly, fearlessly infamous—was proved by a host of witnesses; in particular, by a certain Virginie, maid of the respondent, who deposed to having frequently found me at her feet, and who confessed to have received costly presents to seduce her into favoring the cause of the betrayer. Mr. Bracken, a retired detective, who produced what were called the love-letters, amused the jury considerably by his account of my mad freaks and love-sick performances. As for Mrs. MacNamara herself, she entered no appearance to the suit; and the decreenisiwas pronounced, with damages of five thousand pounds, against Paul Gosslett, who, the counsel declared, was in “a position to pay handsomely for his vices, and who had ample means to afford himself the luxury of adultery.” I was told that the mob were prepared to stone me if I had been seen; and that, such was the popular excitement about me, a strong police force was obliged to accompany a red-whiskered gentleman to his house because there was a general impression abroad that he was Gosslett.
Of course I need not say I never ventured back to England; and I indite this, my last confession, from a small village in Bohemia, where I live in board—partial board it is—with a very humble family, who, though not complimentary to me in many things, are profuse in the praises of my appetite.
I rarely see an English newspaper; but a Galignani fell in my way about a week ago, in which I read the marriage of Mrs. MacNamara with R. St. John, Esq., the then Secretary of Legation at Rio. This piece of news gave me much matter of reflection as to my unhappy victim, and has also enabled me to unseal my lips about the bridegroom, of whom I knew something once before.
The man who is always complaining is the terror of his friends; hence, if nothing but bad luck attend we, I shall trouble the world no more with my Confessions; if Fate, however, should be pleased to smile ever so faintly on me, you shall hear once more from poor Paul Gosslett.
THE END.