"Flityville,March 19.
"Flityville,March 19.
"You are doubtless surprised, my dear fellow," I began, "at my turning myself into a hermit at this most inopportune season of the year; but the fact is, that shortly after you left Dickiefield, I became so deeply impressed with the responsibility of the great work I had undertaken, that I perceived that a period of retirement and repose was absolutely necessary with a view to the elaboration of some system which should enable me to grapple with the great moral and social questions upon which I am engaged.
"Diverting my anxious gaze from Christendom generally, I concentrated it upon my own country, in the hope that I might discover the root of its disease. Morbid activity of the national brain, utterly deranged action of the national heart. Those were the symptoms—unmistakable. Proximate cause also not difficult to arrive at. Due to the noxious influence of tall chimneys upon broad acres, whereby the commercial effluvium of the Plutocracy has impregnated the upper atmosphere, and overpowered the enfeebled and enervated faculties of the aristocracy; lust of gain has supervened upon love of ease. Hence the utter absence of those noble and generous impulses which are the true indications of healthy national life. Expediency has taken the place of principle; conscience has been crushed out of the system by calculation. The life-blood of the country, instead of bounding along its veins, creeps sluggishly through them, till it threatens to stagnate altogether, and congestion becomes imminent.
"Looked at from what I may term 'externals,' we simply present to the world at large the ignoble spectacle of a nation of usurers trembling over our money-bags; looked at from internals, I perceive that we are suffering from a moral opiate, to the action of which I attribute the unhappy complaints that I have endeavoured to describe. This pernicious narcotic has been absorbed by us for hundreds of years unsuspected and unperceived under the guise of a popular theology. We have become so steeped in the insane delusion, now many centuries old, that we are a Christian nation, that I anticipate with dread the reaction which will take place when men awaken to the true character of the religious quackery with which they have been duped, and, overlooking in their frenzy the distinction which exists between ancient and modern Christianity, will repudiate the former with horror, which, after all, does not deserve to be condemned, for it has never yet been tried as a political system in any country. Individuals only profess to be theoretically governed by it. Nor would it be possible, as society is at present constituted, for any man to carry out its principles in daily life. That any statesman would be instantly ruined who should openly announce that he intended to govern the country on purely Christian principles, may be made clear to the simplest comprehension. For instance, imagine our Foreign Minister getting up in the House of Commons and justifying his last stroke of foreign policy upon the ground that we should 'love our neighbours better than ourselves, or penning a despatch to any power that we felt 'persecuted' by blessing it. When do we even do good to anybody in our national capacity, much less to them 'that hate us'? We certainly pray like Chinamen when we want to propitiate an angry Deity about the cattle-plague; but who ever heard of 'a form of prayer to be used' for nations 'who despitefully use us.' Fancy the Chancellor of the Exchequer informing us that instead of laying up for the nation treasures upon earth, he proposed realising all that the country possessed and giving it to the poor. Christian Churchmen and statesmen do not therefore sufficiently believe in the power and efficacy of the Christian moral code to trust the nation to it alone. Hence they have invented ecclesiastical organisations and theological dogmas as anodynes; and the people have been lulled into security by the singular notion, that if they supported the one and professed to believe in the other, they were different from either Mohammedans or Bhuddists. In a word, it is the curse of England that its intellect can see truths which its heart will not embody. The more I think of it the more I am disposed to risk the assertion, that if, as is supposed, the moral code called Christian is divine, it is only not practicable, literally, by the nation for lack of national heart-faith. I tell you this in confidence, for I am already considered so wild and visionary upon all these matters, and so thoroughly unsound, that I should not like it to be generally known, for fear of its injuring my political prospects. In the mean time it will very much assist me in arriving at some of my conclusions, if you will kindly procure for me, from any leading member of the Legislature, lay or clerical, answers to the following questions:—
"First, Whether Jonah could possibly have had anything to say to Nineveh which would not apply with equal force to this Christian metropolis?—and if so, What?
"Second, Specify the sins which were probably committed in Chorazin or Bethsaida, but which have not yet been perpetrated in London.
"Third, As statecraft (assisted by priestcraft) consists not in making the State better but richer, explain why it is easier for a collection of rich men—called a nation—to be saved, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but not so easy for one man.
"Fourth, Does the saying that the love of money is the root of all evil apply to a nation as well as to an individual?—and if not, how does it happen that the more we accumulate wealth, the more we increase poverty and misery and crime?
"That is enough for the present. But oh! what a string of questions I could propound to these stumbling pagans, stupefied by the fatuous superstition that their country is safer than other countries which have come to judgment, because they are called by a particular name! Is there among them all not the faintest consciousness of an impending doom? or is the potency of the drug such that it is impossible to raise a cry loud enough to rouse them? Why will they go on vainly trying to solve the impossible problem of Government, never seeing that whatever system is introduced is merely a rearrangement of sinners; that voters are like cards—the more you shuffle them the dirtier they get; and that it is of no use agitating for a reform in the franchise without first agitating for a reform in the consciences of those who are to exercise it, and in the fundamental principles of the policy upon which we are to be governed.
"Wisely saith the greatest poet of the age, as yet, alas! unknown to fame:—
"Reformers fail because they change the letter,And not the spirit, of the world's design.Tyrant and slave create the scourge and fetter—As is the worshipper, will be the shrine.The ideal fails, though perfect were the plan,World-harmony springs through the perfect man.We burn out life in hot impatient striving;We dash ourselves against the hostile spears:The bale-tree, that our naked hands are riving,Unites to crush us. Ere our manhood's years,We sow the rifled blossoms of the prime,Then fruitlessly are gathered out of time.We seek to change souls all unripe for changes;We build upon a treacherous human soilOf moral quicksand, and the world avengesIts crime upon us, while we vainly toil.In the black coal-pit of the popular heartRain falls, light kindles, but no flowers upstart.Know this! For men of ignoble affection,The social scheme that is, were better farThan the orbed sun's most exquisite perfection,Man needs not heaven till he revolves a star.Why seek to win the mad world from its strife?Grow perfect in the sanity of life."[2]
"Reformers fail because they change the letter,And not the spirit, of the world's design.Tyrant and slave create the scourge and fetter—As is the worshipper, will be the shrine.The ideal fails, though perfect were the plan,World-harmony springs through the perfect man.
We burn out life in hot impatient striving;We dash ourselves against the hostile spears:The bale-tree, that our naked hands are riving,Unites to crush us. Ere our manhood's years,We sow the rifled blossoms of the prime,Then fruitlessly are gathered out of time.
We seek to change souls all unripe for changes;We build upon a treacherous human soilOf moral quicksand, and the world avengesIts crime upon us, while we vainly toil.In the black coal-pit of the popular heartRain falls, light kindles, but no flowers upstart.
Know this! For men of ignoble affection,The social scheme that is, were better farThan the orbed sun's most exquisite perfection,Man needs not heaven till he revolves a star.Why seek to win the mad world from its strife?Grow perfect in the sanity of life."[2]
"Ah, my dear friend! how often, from my humble seat below the gangway, have I gazed upon the Treasury Bench, and wondered how it was that right hon. gentlemen, struggling to retain their dignity by sitting on each other's knees, did not perceive that the reason why great reforms perpetually fail is, not because they have not their root in some radical injustice—not because the despotisms against which they rise are in themselves right—but because those who attempt to inaugurate new and better conditions upon the surfaces of society are themselves, for the most part, desolate, darkened, and chaotic within! I am under the impression, therefore, that no reform-agitation will ever do good which is not preceded by an agitation, throughout the length and breadth of the land, in favour of the introduction, for the first time, of this old original moral code, not merely into the government of the country, but into the life of every individual. Unless that is done, and done speedily, those who are now morally stupefied will die in their torpor, and the rest who are harmless lunatics will become gibbering and shrieking demoniacs.—
Yours affectionately,"F. V."
Yours affectionately,
"F. V."
I had become so absorbed by the train of considerations into which I had been led, that I never thought of mentioning to Grandon the circumstances which attended my departure from Dickiefield. It was not until after I had posted my letter that it occurred to me how singular, considering the last words which passed between us, this silence would appear. If to be odd has its drawbacks, it also has its advantages; and I felt that Grandon would be as unable to draw any conclusions from my silence as from any other erratic act of my life. After all, what could I have said? It will be time, I thought, to venture upon that very delicate ground when I get his reply. But this I was destined never to receive, and the questions I had propounded are likely to remain unanswered, for on the very next day I received the following telegram from Lady Broadhem:—
"Your immediate presence here is absolutely necessary. Delay will be fatal."Mary Broadhem."Grosvenor Square,20th March."
"Your immediate presence here is absolutely necessary. Delay will be fatal.
"Mary Broadhem.
"Grosvenor Square,20th March."
Piccadilly,April.
Piccadilly,April.
Considering the extent to which I have been digressing, it will be perhaps desirable, before I plunge again into the stormy current of my narrative, to define in a few words what, in the language of diplomacy, is termed "the situation." After I have done so, I shall feel much obliged if you will kindly "grasp" it. Briefly, it is as follows: I am telegraphed for in frantic terms by an old lady who is under the firm impression that I am engaged to be married to her daughter. I am violently in love with that daughter, but for certain reasons I have felt it my duty to account for my extraordinary conduct by informing her confidentially that I have occasional fits of temporary insanity. That daughter, I am positively assured by her mother, is no less violently attached to my most dear and intimate friend. My most dear and intimate friend returns the affection. Mamma threatens that if I do not marry her daughter, rather than allow my most dear and intimate friend to do so, she will ally the young lady to an affluent native of Bombay. So much is known. On the following points I am still in the dark:—
First, What on earth does Lady Broadhem mean by telling me to come immediately, as delay may be fatal?—to whom? to me or to Lady Ursula, or herself? My knowledge of her ladyship induces me to incline towards the latter hypothesis; the suspense is, however, none the less trying.
Second, Does Lady Ursula imagine that I know how she and Grandon feel towards each other?
Third, Is Grandon under the impression that I have actually proposed and been accepted by Lady Ursula?
Fourth, Does my conduct occasionally amount to something more than eccentricity or not?
Fifth—and this was very unpleasant—Shall I find Grandon at our joint abode? And if so, what shall I say to him?
Sixth, Have Grandon and Lady Ursula met, and did anything pass between them?
Thank goodness Grandon was at the House. So, after a hurried toilet, I went on to Grosvenor Square. The young ladies were both out. Lady Bridget had taken advantage of thechaperonageof a newly-married rather fast female cousin, to go to a ball. Lady Ursula had gone to a solitary tea with a crabbed old aunt. Lady Broadhem was in her own sitting-room, lying on a couch behind a table covered with papers. She looked wearily up when I entered, and held out a thin hand for me to do what I liked with. "How good of you to come, dear Frank!" she said. It was the first time she had ever called me Frank, and I knew she expected me to acknowledge it by pressing her fingers, so I squeezed them affectionately. "Broadhem said if I wanted to make sure of you I ought to have brought Ursula's name into the telegraph, but I told him her mother's would do as well."
"What does the——" I am afraid I mentally said 'old girl'—"want, I wonder? It must be really serious, or she would have shammed agitation. There is something about this oily calm which is rather portentous. Then she has taken care to have every member of the family out of the house. What is she ringing the bell for now?"
"Tell Lady Ursula when she comes home that I am engaged particularly, and will come up and see her in her bedroom before she goes to bed," said Lady Broadhem to the servant who answered it.
"Does not Lady Ursula know of my having come to town in answer to your summons?" I asked.
"No, dear child; why should I inflict my troubles upon her? Even Broadhem, to whom I was obliged to speak more openly, only suspects the real state of the case. I have reserved my full confidence for my future son-in-law."
I lifted up my eyes with a rapturous expression, and played with a paper-knife. She wanted me to help her on with an obvious remark, which I declined to make; so, after a pause, she went on, with a deep sigh,——
"What sad news we keep on getting of those poor dear Confederates, Frank!"
"Let us hope they will recover," said I, encouragingly.
"Oh, but they do keep on falling so, it is quite dreadful."
"There was no great number of them fell at Wilmington."
"How stupid I am!" she said; "my poor mind gets quite bewildered. I was thinking of stock, not men; they went down again three more yesterday, and my broker declines altogether to carry them on from one account to another any more. I bought at 60, and they have done nothing but go down ever since. I generally go by Lord Staggerton's advice, and he recommended me to sell a bear some months ago; but that stupid little Spiffy Goldtip insisted that it was only a temporary depression, and now he says how could he know that President Davis would replace Johnston by Hood."
"Very tiresome of Davis: but you should have employed more than one broker," I remarked. "Persons of limited capital and speculative tendencies should operate mysteriously. Your right hand should not know what your left hand is doing."
"Hush, Frank! you can surely be business-like without being profane. I was completely in Spiffy's hands; Lady Mundane told me she always let him do for her, and"—here Lady Broadhem lowered her voice—"Iknowhe has access to the best sources of information. I used to employ Staggerton, but he is so selfish that he never told me the best things; besides which, of course, I was obliged to have him constantly to dinner; and his great delight was always to say things which were calculated to shock my religious friends. Moreover, he has lately been doing more as a promoter of new companies than in buying and selling. Now Spiffy is so very useful in society, and has so much tact, that although there are all kinds of stories against him, still I did not think there was any sufficient reason to shut him out of the house. There was quite a set made against the poor little man at one time—worldly people are so hard and uncharitable; so, partly for the sake of his aunt, Lady Spiffington, who was my dear friend, and partly, indeed, because Staggerton had really become useless and intolerable, I put my affairs entirely into Spiffy's hands."
"And the result is?" I asked.
"That I must pay up £27,000 to-morrow," said Lady Broadhem, with the impenitent sigh of a hardened criminal.
"You should have kept his lordship to act as a check on the Honourable Spiffington," I said; "but I cannot advise now, unless I know everything."
A faint tinge suffused Lady Broadhem's cheek as she said, "What more do you want to know?"
"Exactly what money you possess, and exactly how it is invested."
"I don't see that that is at all necessary. Here is Spiffington's letter, from which you will see how much I must pay to-morrow; my assurance that I cannot produce so large a sum at such short notice is enough."
"You can surely have no difficulty in finding some one who would lend you the money, provided you were to pay a sufficiently high rate of interest."
The tinge which had not left Lady Broadhem's cheek deepened as she answered me, "Frank, it was on no hasty impulse that I telegraphed for you. I do not feel bound to enter into all the details of my private affairs, but I do feel that if there is one man in the world upon whom, at such a crisis, I have a right to rely, it is he to whom I have promised my daughter, and who professes to be devotedly attached to her."
"In short, Lady Broadhem," said I, rising and taking up my hat, "you are willing to part with your daughter to me on condition of my paying a first instalment of £27,000 down, with the prospect of 'calls' to an unlimited extent looming in the background. I doubt whether you will find Chundango prepared to go into such a very hazardous speculation, but I should recommend you to apply to him."
At that moment I heard Lady Ursula's voice in the hall, and the rustle of her dress as she went up-stairs. I was on my way to the door, but I stopped abruptly, and turned upon Lady Broadhem. She was saying something to which I was not attending, but now was suddenly paralysed and silenced as I looked at her fixedly. If a glance can convey meaning, I flatter myself my eyes were not devoid of expression at that moment. "What!" I thought, "is it reserved for the mother of the girl I love to make me call her 'a hazardous speculation'?" It is impossible for me to describe the intensity of the hatred which I felt at this moment for the woman who had caused me for one second to think of Ursula as a marketable commodity, who should be offered for purchase to an Oriental adventurer. The only being I despised more than Lady Broadhem was myself;—because she chose to take my angel off the pedestal on which I had placed her and throw her into the dirt, was I calmly to acquiesce in the proceeding? The storm raging within me seemed gradually to blind me to external objects; my great love was battling with remorse, indignation, and despair; and I stood wavering and distracted, looking, as it were, within for rest and without for comfort, till the light seemed to leave my eyes, and the fire which had flashed from them for a moment became suddenly extinguished.
I was recalled to consciousness by an exclamation from Lady Broadhem. "Heavens, Frank, don't stare so wildly—you quite frighten me! I have only asked for your advice, and you make use of expressions and fly off in a manner which nothing but the excitability of your temperament can excuse. I assure you I am worried enough without having my cares added to by your unkindness. There, if you want to know the exact state of my affairs, look through my papers—you will find I am a woman of business; and I have got an accurate list which I shall be able to explain. Of course all the more important original documents are at my solicitor's."
I sat moodily down without answering this semi-conciliatory, semi-plaintive speech. I did not even take the trouble to analyse it. I felt morally and physically exhausted. The long journey, the suspense, and thisdénouement, had prostrated me. I took up the papers Lady Broadhem offered me, and turned them vacantly over. I read the list, but failed to attach any meaning to the items over which my gaze listlessly wandered. I felt that Lady Broadhem was watching me curiously, but every effort I made to grasp the details before me failed hopelessly. At last I threw the packet down in despair, and, leaning over the table, clasped my bursting forehead with my hands.
"Dear Frank," said Lady Broadhem, and for the first time her voice betrayed signs of genuine emotion, "I know I have been very imprudent, but I did it all for the best. You can understand now why I hesitated to tell you everything at first. You don't know how much it has cost me, and to what means I am obliged to resort to keep up my courage; besides, I have got into such a habit of concealment that I could not bear that even you should know the desperate state of our affairs, though I had no idea that in so short a time you could have unravelled such complicated accounts and arrived at the terrible result. Perhaps you would like me to leave you for a few moments. I will go and say good-night to Ursula, whom I heard going up-stairs just now."
I heard Lady Broadhem leave the room, but did not raise my head, and indeed only slowly comprehended the purport of her last speech. As it dawned upon me, the hopelessness of the whole situation seemed to overwhelm me. Chaos and ruin like gaunt spectres stared me in the face! What mattered it if the Broadhem family were bankrupt in estate, if I was to become bankrupt in mind? What matter if they lost all their worldly possessions? Had I not lost all hope of Ursula since I had heard of her attachment to Grandon, and with her every generous impulse of my nature? Why should I save the family, even if I could? Why in this desert of my existence spend a fortune on an oasis I was forbidden ever to enter or enjoy? Why should I bring offerings to the shrine at which I might never worship? The whole temple that enclosed it was tottering. Instead of helping to prop it up, why not, like Samson, drag it down and let it bury me in its ruin? I threw myself on the couch from which Lady Broadhem had risen, and, turning my face to the wall, longed with an intense desire for an eternal release. At that moment my hand, which I had thrust under the pillow, came in contact with something hard and cold. I drew it out, and was startled to find that it was a small vial labelled "POISON." I am not naturally superstitious, but this immediate response to my thoughts seemed an indication so direct as to be almost supernatural. I had hardly framed in definite terms the idea of a suicide which should at once end my agony, when the means thereto were actually placed in my very hand. Even had I doubted, the inward sense, the inspiration to which I trust, and which has never yet failed me, said, Drink! It even whispered aloud, Drink! From every corner of the room came soft pleasant murmurs of the same word. Beautiful sirens floating round me bade me drink. Every thought of moral evil vanished in connection with this final act. I looked forward with rapture to the long sleep before me, and with a smile of the most intense and fervent gratitude I raised the bottle to my lips. I remember thinking at the moment, "The smile is very important—it shall play upon my lips to the end. Ursula, I die happy, for my last thought is, that in the spirit I shall soon revisit thee," and the liquid trickled slowly down my throat. It was not until I had drained the last drop that I suddenly recognised the taste. It was the "pick-me-up" I always get at Harris's, the apothecary in St James's Street, when my fit of nervous exhaustion come on, but there seemed rather more of the spirituous ingredient in it than usual. The life-stream began to tingle back through all my fibres—my miseries took grotesque forms. "Ha! ha! Lady Broadhem! the means you take to keep up your courage, which you so delicately alluded to just now, have come in most opportunely. What a fool I was to make mountains out of molehills, and call the little ills of life miseries! We will soon see what these little imprudences are the old lady talks of." And I took up the papers with a hand rapidly becoming steady, and glanced over them with an eye no longer confused and dim. Oh the pleasure of the sensation of this gradual recovery of vigour of mind and force of body!
I was engaged in this task, and making the most singular and startling discoveries, the nature of which I shall shortly disclose, when I heard Lady Broadhem coming down-stairs. I felt so angry with her for having been the means of tempting me to commit a great sin, and for the trouble she was causing me generally, that I followed the first impulse which my imagination suggested as the best means of revenging myself upon her. Accordingly, when the door opened, she found me stretched at full length on the sofa, my form rigid, my face fixed, my eyes staring, my hands clenched, and my whole attitude as nearly that of a person in a fit as I had time to make it.
"Gracious, what is the matter?" said she.
My lips seemed with difficulty to form the word "poison."
"Frank, speak to me!" and she seized my hand, which was not so cold as I could have wished it, but which fell helplessly by my side as she let it drop.
"Poison!" I this time muttered audibly.
"Where did you get it?" said she, snappishly. For it began to dawn upon her that I was not poisoned at all, but had discovered her secret. I turned my thumb languidly in the direction of under the pillow. She hastily thrust in her hand and pulled out the empty bottle. "You fool"—she actually used this expression; I have heard other ladies do the same—"you fool," and she was literally furious, "what did you go poking under the pillow for? You are no more poisoned than I am; it is a draught I am obliged to take for nervous depression, and your imagination has almost frightened you into a fit. I put 'poison' on it to keep the servants from prying. Come, get up, be a man—do," and Lady Broadhem gave me her hand, in consideration for my weakness to help myself up by.
"Dearest Lady Broadhem," said I, pressing it to my lips, "I cannot tell what comfort you give me. I was just beginning to regret the world I thought I was about to leave for ever, when your assurance that I have not taken poison, but a tonic, makes me feel as grateful to you as if you had saved my life. I confess that, when I found that you considered your affairs to be so desperate that you had provided the most effectual mode of escape from them, I envied the superior foresight which you had displayed, and determined to repair my error. If it is worth dear Lady Broadhem's while to poison herself, I thought, it is surely worth mine. But, after all, suicide is a cowardly act either in a man or a woman; better far face the ills of life with the aid of stimulants, than fly for refuge in the agony of a financial crisis to the shop of an apothecary."
"You are an incomprehensible creature, Frank," said Lady Broadhem; "I am sure I hope for her own sake that Ursula will understand you better than I do; but as your humours are uncertain, and you seem able to go into these affairs now, I think we had better not waste any more time; only I do wish" (with a wistful glance at the bottle) "you would provide yourself with your own draughts in future."
"How lucky," thought I, as I put on a business-like air, and methodically began arranging the papers according to their docquets. "Now, if it had been just the other way, and her ladyship had taken the draught instead of me, how completely I should have been at her mercy? Now I am master of the situation."
"'Greek loan, thirty thousand,'" I read, going down the list; "I am afraid this is rather a losing business. I see they have been already held over for some months. I suppose some of the £27,000 is to be absorbed there."
"Yes," said Lady Broadhem; "because if I can carry on for another fortnight, I have got information which makes it certain I shall recover on them."
"What is this? five hundred pounds' worth of dollar bonds?" I went on.
"Oh, I only lost a few pounds on them. I bought them at threepence apiece and sold them at twopence. Spiffy got me to take them off his hands, and, in fact, made a great favour of it, as he says there is nothing people make money more surely out of than dollar bonds."
"Bubbs's Eating-house and Cigar Divan Company, Holborn. Well, there is a strong direction. How do you come by so many shares?"
"Lord Staggerton was one of the promoters, and had them allotted to me," said Lady Broadhem. "He also was kind enough to put me into two Turkish baths, a monster hotel, and a music-hall. You will see that I lost heavily in the Turkish baths and the hotel, but the music-hall is paying well. Spiffy says I ought never to stay so long in anything as I do; in and out again, if it is only half a per cent, is his system; but Staggerton used to look after my interests, and managed them very successfully. I am afraid that all my troubles commenced when I quarrelled with him. He is now promoting two companies which I hear most highly spoken of, but he says I must take my chance with others about shares, and he won't advise me in the matter. One is 'The Metropolitan Crossing-Sweeping Company,' of which he's to be chairman, and the other is the 'Seaside Bathing-Machine Company.' Spiffy says they will both fail, because Staggerton has not the means of having them properly brought out. Bodwinkle won't speak to him, and unless either he or the Credit Foncier bring a thing out, there is not the least chance of its taking with the public. They don't so much look at the merits of the speculation as at the way in which it is put before them; and with this system of rigging the market, so many people go in like me only to get out again, that it is becoming more and more difficult every day to start anything new. Oh dear," said Lady Broadhem, "how exhausted it always makes me to talk 'City!' I only want to show you that I understand what I am about, and that if you can only help to tide me over this crisis, something will surely turn up a prize."
"I know you disapprove of cards, but perhaps you will allow me to suggest the word 'trump' as being more expressive than 'prize,'" I said. "Well, now we have got through the companies, what have we here? Why, Lady Broadhem, you have positively taken no less than seven unfurnished houses this year. What on earth do you intend to do with them all?"
"My dear Frank, where have you been living for the last few years? Do with them? Exactly what dozens of smart people, with very little to live on, do with houses—let them, to be sure. I made £1100 last year in four houses, and all by adding it on to the premiums. I don't like furnishing and putting it in the rent. In the first place, one is apt to have disagreeable squabbles about the furniture, which, however good you give people, they always say is shabby; and in the second, you get much more into the hands of the house-agents."
"Well, but," I said, "here is one of the largest houses in London—rent, unfurnished, £1500 a-year. That is rather hazardous: who do you expect will take that?"
"Oh, that is the safest speculation of them all," said Lady Broadhem. "I had an infinity of trouble to get it. Spiffy first suggested the plan to me, and we found it succeed admirably last year. It was we who brought out Mrs Gorgon Tompkins and her daughters. She took the house from me at my own rent on condition that Spiffy managed her balls, and got all the best people in London to go to them. This year we are going to bring out the Bodwinkles. It will be much easier, because she is young, and has no family. He, you know, is a man of immense wealth in the City—in fact, as I said before, his name is almost essential to the success of any new company. I told his wife I could have nothing to do with them unless he came into Parliament, for they are horridly vulgar, and they were bound to do what they could for themselves before I could think of taking them up. Lady Mundane positively refused to have anything to do with them, and, in fact, I live so little in the world, though I keep it up to some extent for the sake of my girls, that it was quite an accident my hearing of them. Now, however, he has got into the House of Commons, and it is arranged that she is to take the house, and Bodwinkle is to help Spiffy in City matters, on condition that he gets all Lady Mundane's list to her first party. Poor Spiffy is a little nervous, as Bodwinkle actually wanted to put it in writing on a stamped paper; but he is so immensely useful to society, that the least people can do is to be good-natured on an occasion of this kind."
"No fear of them," said I; "if Bodwinkle is the only man who can launch a company in the City, no one can compete with Spiffy in launching a snob in Mayfair. But I thought you never went to balls."
"I never do; but because I do not approve of dancing, there is no reason why I should not let houses for the purpose. You might as well say a religious banker ought not to open an account with a theatre, or a good brewer live by his beer, because some people drink too much of it. If any one was to leave a gin-palace to me in a legacy, I should not refuse the rent."
"Any more than you do the interest of your shares in the music-hall. And now," said I, coolly, gathering up all her papers and putting them in my pocket, "as it is past one o'clock, and I see you are tired, I will take these away with me, and let you know to-morrow what I think had better be done under the circumstances."
"What are you doing, Frank? what an unheard-of proceeding! I insist upon your leaving my papers here."
"If I do, you must look elsewhere for the money. No, Lady Broadhem"—I felt that my moral ascendancy was increasing every moment, and that I should never have such another opportunity of establishing it—"we had better understand each other clearly. You regard me at this moment in the light of your future son-in-law, and in that capacity expect me to extricate you and your family from your financial difficulties. Now I am quite capable of 'behaving badly,' as the world calls it, at the shortest notice. I told you at Dickiefield that I was totally without principle, and we are both trusting to Ursula to reform me. But I will relinquish the pleasure of paying your debts, and the advantage of being reformed by your daughter, unless you agree to my terms."
"And they are?" said her ladyship, doggedly.
"First, that from this evening you put the entire management of your affairs into my hands, and, as a preliminary measure, allow me to take away these papers, giving me a note to your lawyer authorising him to follow my instructions in everything; and, secondly, that you never, under any pretence, enter into any company or speculation of any kind except with my permission."
A glance of very evil meaning shot across her ladyship's eyes as they met mine after this speech, but I frightened it away by the savageness of my gaze, till she was literally obliged to put her hand up to her forehead. The crisis was exciting me, for Ursula was at stake, and it was just possible my conditions might be refused; but I felt the magnetism of my will concentrating itself in my eyes as if they were burning-glasses. It seemed to dash itself upon the reefs and barriers of Lady Broadhem's rocky nature; the inner forces of our organisms were engaged in a decisive struggle for the mastery; but the field of battle was in her, not in me. I had invaded the enemy's country, and her frontier was as long and difficult to defend as ours is in Canada. So I kept on pouring in mesmeric reinforcements, as she sat with her head bent, and her whole moral being in turmoil. Never before had any man ventured to dictate to this veteran campaigner. The late Lord had been accustomed to regard her as infallible, and Broadhem has not yet known the pleasures of independence. She never had friends who were not servile, or permitted herself to be contradicted, except by a few privileged ecclesiastics, and then only in unctuous and deprecatory tones. That I, of whom the world was accustomed to speak in terms of compassion, and whom she inwardly despised at this moment, should stand over her more unyielding and imperious than herself, caused her to experience a sensation nearly allied to suffocation. I seemed instinctively to follow the mental processes through which she was passing, and a certain consciousness that I did so demoralised her. Now, I felt, she is going to take me to task in a "sweet Christian spirit" about the state of my soul, and I brought up "will" reinforcements which I poured down upon her brain through the parting of her front, till she backed suddenly out of the position, and took up a hostile, I might almost say an abusive, attitude. Here again I met her with such a shower of invective, "uttered not, yet comprehended," that after a silent contest she gave this up too, and finally fell back on the flat rejection of me and my money altogether. This, I confess, was the critical moment. She took her hand down when she came to this mental resolution, and she looked at me, I thought, but it might have been imagination, demoniacally. What had I to oppose to it? My love for Ursula? No; that would soften me. My aversion to Lady Broadhem? No; for it was not so great as hers for me. For a moment I wavered; my will seemed paralysed; her gaze was becoming fascinating, while mine was getting clouded, till a mist seemed to conceal her from me altogether. And now, at the risk of being misunderstood and ridiculed, I feel bound to describe exactly the most remarkable occurrence of my life. At that moment I saw distinctly, in the luminous haze which surrounded me, a fiery cross. I have already said that objects of this kind often appeared to me in the dark, apropos of nothing; but upon no former occasion had a lighted room become dim, and a vision manifested itself within which seemed to answer to the involuntary invocation for assistance that I made when I found the powers of my own will beginning utterly to fail me; and, what was still more strange, never before had any such manifestation effected an immediate revolution in my sentiments. Up to that moment I had been internally fierce and overbearing in my resolution to subdue the nature with which I was contending, and I was actually defeated when I received this supernatural indication of assistance. Before the dazzling vision had vanished, it had conveyed its lesson of self-sacrifice, and created within me a new impulse, under the influence of which I solemnly vowed that if I triumphed now I should use my victory for the good not only of those I loved, but of her then sitting before me. The demon of my own nature, which had evidently been struggling with the demon of hers, suddenly deserted me, and his place seemed occupied by an angel of light, furnishing me with the powers of exorcism, which were to be gained only at the sacrifice of self. My very breath seemed instantly charged with prayers for her, at the moment I felt she regarded me with loathing and hate.
An ineffable calm pervaded my whole being. A sense of happiness and gratitude deprived the consciousness of the conquest which I had gained of any sentiment of exultation; on the contrary, I felt gentle and subdued myself—anxious to soothe and comfort her with that consolation I had just experienced. Ah, Lady Broadhem! at that moment, had I not been in the presence of a "saint," I should have fallen upon my knees. Perhaps as it was I might have done so, had she not suddenly leant back exhausted.
"Frank," she said, "I seem to have been dreaming. I am subject to fits of violent nervous depression, and the agitation of this scene has completely overcome me; my brain seems stunned, and all my faculties have become torpid. I can think of nothing more now, do what you like; all I want is to go to sleep. If you ring the bell in that corner, Jenkins will come down. Good-night; I shall see you to-morrow. Take the papers with you."
I took Lady Broadhem's hand—it was cold and clammy—and held it till her maid came down. She had already fallen into a half-mesmeric sleep, but was not conscious of her condition. I saw her safely on her way to her bedroom on the arm of her maid, and left the house with my pockets full of papers, more fresh and invigorated than I had felt for weeks. A new light had indeed dawned upon me. For the first time one of these "hallucinations," as medical men usually term them, to which I am subject, had contained a lesson. Not only had I profited from it upon the spot, but it had suggested to me an entirely new line of conduct in the great question which most nearly affected my own happiness, and seemed to guarantee me the strength of will and moral courage which should enable me to carry it out.
As I walked home, with the piercing March wind cutting me through, solemn thoughts and earnest aspirations arose within me, and, struggling into existence amid the wreck that seemed to strew the disturbed chambers of my brain, came the prayer of an old saint, which, in years gone by, had fixed itself permanently in some vacant niche of my mind:—
"Great God! I ask Thee for no meaner pelf,Than that I may not disappoint myself,That in my actions I may soar as highAs I can now discern with this clear eye;And next in value what Thy kindness lends,That I may greatly disappoint my friends,Howe'er they think or hope that it might be,They may not dream how Thou'st distinguished me;That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,And my life practise more than my tongue saith;That my low conduct may not show,Nor my relenting lines,That I Thy purpose did not know,Or overrated Thy designs."
"Great God! I ask Thee for no meaner pelf,Than that I may not disappoint myself,That in my actions I may soar as highAs I can now discern with this clear eye;And next in value what Thy kindness lends,That I may greatly disappoint my friends,Howe'er they think or hope that it might be,They may not dream how Thou'st distinguished me;That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,And my life practise more than my tongue saith;That my low conduct may not show,Nor my relenting lines,That I Thy purpose did not know,Or overrated Thy designs."
Time alone will show whether the project I formed under the new influences which were now controlling me, will ever be realised.
There is one point which I have in common with Archimedes,—my most brilliant inspirations very often come to me in my tub, or while I am dressing. On the morning following the scene above described, I trusted to this moment to furnish me with an idea which should enable me to put my plan into operation, but I sought in vain.
In the first place, though I assumed in the presence of Lady Broadhem a thorough knowledge of the peculiar description of the transaction in which she was engaged, I feel bound not to conceal from my readers that I have made it a rule through life to confine my knowledge of business strictly to theory, and though I am as thoroughly conversant with the terms of the Stock Exchange as with the language of the swell mob, I avoid, in ordinary life, making use either of one or the other. Hence I have always treated debentures, stock, scrip, coupons, and all the jargon connected with such money-making and money-losing contrivances, as pertaining to the abstract science of finance; nor do I ever desire to know anything of them practically, feeling assured that the information thus acquired is of a character calculated to exercise an injurious influence upon the moral nature. I do not for a moment wish to reflect upon those honest individuals who devote their whole lives to the acquisition of money and nothing else. Had one of my own ancestors not done so, I should not now be the millionaire I am, and able to write thus of the pursuit of wealth. But let no man tell me that the supreme indifference to it which I entertain, does not place me upon a higher platform than a gold-hunter can possibly aspire to. When, therefore, I looked forward to an interview with the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip, I felt that I incurred a very serious responsibility. Not being versed in the Capel Court standard of morality, or being in the habit of treading those delicate lines upon which Spiffy had learnt to balance himself so gracefully, I might, instead of doing him good, be the means of encouraging him in that pecuniary scramble which enabled him to gain a precarious livelihood.
"After all," I thought, "why not hover about the City with one's hands full of gold, as one used to after dinner at Greenwich, when showers of copper delighted the ragged crowd beneath, and have the fun of seeing all the mud-larking Spiffys, fashionable and snobbish, scrambling in wild confusion, and rolling fraternally over each other in the dirt? If I can't convert them, if I must be 'done' by them, I will 'do' to them as I would be 'done' by; and rather than leave them to perish, will adopt an extreme measure, and keep on suffocating them with the mud they delight to revel in, till they cry aloud for help. What a pleasure it would be to wash Spiffy all over afterwards, and start him fresh and sweet in a new line of life!" As I said before, I was in my tub myself as I made this appropriate reflection; then my thoughts involuntarily reverted to Chundango. When I had threatened Lady Broadhem with the mercenary spirit of that distinguished Oriental, I inwardly doubted whether, indeed, it were possible for her to propose any pecuniary sacrifice which he was not prepared to make, in order to gain the social prize upon which he had set his heart; and I dreaded lest I should have driven her in despair to have recourse to this "dark" alternative,—whether, in order to save the Broadhem family from ruin and disgrace—for I suspected that the papers I had carried away contained evidence that the one was as possible as the other—Ursula would accede to the pressure of the family generally, and of her mother in particular, whose wish none of her children had ever dared to thwart, was a consideration which caused me acute anxiety. I must prepare myself shortly for a conversation on the subject with Grandon. What should I say to him? Granting that the means occasionally justify the end, which I do not admit, what would be the use of making a false statement either in the sense that I was, or that I was not, going to marry Ursula? If I said I was, he would think me a traitor and her a jilt; if I said I was not, I must go on and tell him that the family would be ruined and disgraced, or that she must marry Chundango to save it. He would obtain comfort neither way. He had evidently not seen the Broadhems, and was therefore sure now to be in blissful ignorance that anything has happened at all. Better leave him so. If he is convinced that Ursula loves him, he would never dream of her accepting me. Even had our acquaintance been longer than it was, before I was so mad as to think of proposing to her, the best thing I can do is certainly to hold my tongue; but then, I thought, how will he account for my reserve? what can he think except that it arises from an unworthy motive?—and I brushed my hair viciously. At that instant I heard a thump at the door, and before I could answer, in walked the subject of my meditation.
"Well, my dear old fellow," said Grandon, as he grasped my hand warmly, "how mysterious and spasmodic you have been in your movements! I was afraid even now, if I had not invaded the sanctity of your dressing-room, that you would have slipped through my fingers. I know you have a great deal to tell me, of interest to us both, and we are too fast friends to hesitate to confide in each other on any matters which affect our happiness. True men never have any reticence as between themselves; they only have recourse to that armour when they happen to be cursed with false friends." I cannot describe my feelings during this speech. How on earth was I to avoid reticence? how show him that I loved and trusted him when I had just been elaborately devising a speech which should tell him nothing? and I thought of our school and then our college days—how I never seemed to be like other boys or other men of my own age—and how when nobody understood me Grandon did, and how when nobody defended my peculiarities Grandon did—how he protected and advised me at first out of sheer compassion, until at last I had become as a younger brother to him. How distressed he was when I gave up diplomacy, and how anxious during the five years that I was exploring in the Far West and gold-digging in Australia! and how nothing but his letters ever induced me to leave the wild reckless life that possessed such a wonderful charm for me; and how he bore with my wilfulness and vanity—for the faults of my character at such moments would become painfully apparent to me; and how now I was going to return it all, by allowing him to suppose that I had deliberately plotted against his happiness, and ruthlessly sapped the solid foundations upon which our life's friendship had been built. He saw these painful thoughts reflected but too accurately upon my face, for he had been accustomed to read it for so many years, and he smiled a look of encouragement and kindliness. "Come," he said, "I will tell you exactly, first, everything I suspect, and then everything I know, and then what I think about it, so that you will have as little of the labour of revelation as possible. First of all, I suspect that you imagine that I had proposed to Lady Ursula Newlyte before we met the other day at Dickiefield: I need not say that in that case I should have told you as much upon the evening we parted; I pledge you my word I have never uttered a syllable to Lady Ursula from which she could suspect the state of my feelings towards her, and she has never given me any indication that she returned my affection; I therefore did not mention myself when you told me your intention of proposing to her at Dickiefield; I only do so now in consequence of a letter which I received from Lady Broadhem last night."
"A letter from Lady Broadhem?" said I, aghast.
"Yes," he said, "in which she encloses a copy of one of yours containing a proposal to Lady Ursula, and informs me that you were aware, when you made it, of the difficulties you might have to encounter through me. She goes on to say that, whatever may have been her daughter's feelings towards me at one time, they have completely changed, as she at once accepted you; and she winds up with the rather unnecessary remark that this is the less to be regretted by me, as under no circumstances would I have obtained either her consent or that of Lord Broadhem. And so," my poor friend went on, but his lips were quivering, and I turned away my eyes to avoid seeing the effort it cost him—"and so, you see, my dear Frank, it is all for the best. In the first place, she never loved me. I have too high an opinion of her to suppose that if she had, she would have accepted you; in the second, she would never have married me against her mother's consent—and so, even if she had loved me, we should have both been miserable; and thirdly, if there is one thing that could console me under such a blow, it is, that the man she loves, and the family approve, is my dear old friend, who is far more worthy the happiness in store for him than I should have been." He put his hand kindly on my shoulder as his strong voice shook with the force of his suppressed emotion, and I bowed my head. I felt utterly humiliated by a magnanimity so noble, and by a tenderness surpassing that of women. I thanked God at that moment that Lady Ursula didnotlove me, and I vowed that Lady Broadhem should bitterly expiate her sins against us both. Here, then, was the secret of her refusing to acknowledge that she had stolen my missing letter at Dickiefield, and this was the precious use she had made of it. The question now was, What was to be done? But my mind was paralysed—all its strength seemed expended in vowing vengeance against Lady Broadhem. When I tried to form a sentence of explanation to Grandon, my brain refused its functions; I felt as if I were in a net, and that the slightest movement on my part would entangle me more inextricably in its meshes. The last resolution I had come to before he entered the room was on no account to tell him anything, and this resolution had now become anidée fixe. I had not clearness of mind at the moment to decide whether it was right or wrong. I felt that when my head was clear I had come to the conclusion that it was best, so I stuck to it now. True, it involved leaving him in the delusion that Ursula and I were engaged—but was it altogether certain to remain a delusion? Did Lady Ursula really care for him? I had only Lady Broadhem's word for it. Again, had I anything better to give him? would it be a comfort to him to hear the Chundango alternative? These in a confused way were the thoughts which flitted across my brain in this moment of doubt and difficulty, so I said nothing. He misinterpreted my silence, and thought me overwhelmed with remorse at the part I had played. "Believe me," he said, "I do not think one particle the worse of you for what you have done; I know how difficult it is to control one's feelings in moments of passion; and you see you were quite right not to believe Lady Broadhem when she told you Ursula cared for me."
"I had already written the letter," I stammered out.
"Of course you had: I never supposed you could do the dishonourable thing of hearing she cared about me first, and writing to her afterwards, although Lady Broadhem said so. When you did make the discovery that Lady Ursula's affections were not already engaged, you were perfectly right to win her if you could. I only bargain that you ask me to be your best man."
This was a well-meant but such a very unsuccessful attempt at resignation on Grandon's part, that it touched me to the quick. "My dear Grandon," I said—and I saw my face in the glass opposite, looking white and stony with the effort it cost me not to fall upon his neck and cry like a woman—"I solemnly swear, whatever you may think now, that the day will come when you will find that I was worthy the privilege of having been even your friend. I was going to say, Till then, believe me and trust me; but I need not, for I know that, however unnatural it seems for me to ask you not to allude again to the subject we have just been discussing, you will be satisfied that I would not ask it without having a reason which if you knew you would approve. On my conscience I believe that I am right in reserving from you my full confidence for the first time in my life; but do not let the fact of one forbidden topic alienate us—let it rather act as another link, hidden for the moment, but which may some day prove the most powerful to bind us together."
Grandon's face lit up with a bright frank smile. "I trust and believe in you from the bottom of my soul, and you shall bury any subject you like till it suits you to exhume it. Come, we will go to breakfast, and I will discourse to you on the political and military expediency of spending £200,000 on the fortifications of Quebec."
"Well," thought I, as I followed Grandon down-stairs, "for a man who is yearning to be honest, and to do the right thing by everybody, I have got into as elaborate a complication of lies as if I were a Russian diplomatist. First, I have given both Lady Broadhem and Grandon distinctly to understand that I am at this moment engaged to Ursula, which I am not; and secondly, I have solemnly assured that young lady herself that I am conscious of being occasionally mad."
In this tissue of falsehoods, it is poor consolation to think that the only one in which there may be some foundation of truth is the last. Supposing I was to go in for dishonesty, perhaps I could not help telling the truth by the rule of "contraries." I will go and ask the Honourable Spiffington whether he finds this to be the case, and I parted from Grandon in the hope of catching that gentleman before he had betaken himself to his civic haunts. I was too late, and pursued him east of Temple Bar. Here he frequented sundry "board-rooms" of companies which by a figure of speech he helped to "direct," and was also to be found in the neighbourhood of Hercules Passage and the narrow streets which surround the Stock Exchange, in the little back dens of pet brokers upon whom he relied for "good things." Spiffy used to collect political news in fashionable circles all through the night and up to an early hour of the morning, and then come into the City with it red-hot, so as to "operate." He was one of the most lively little rabbits to be found in all that big warren of which the Bank is the centre, and popped in and out of the different holes with a quickness that made him very difficult to catch. At last I ran him to a very dingy earth, where he was pausing, seated on a green baize table over a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and chaffing a rising young broker who hoped ultimately to be proposed by Spiffy for the Piccadilly Club. He was trying to establish a claim thereto now, on the strength of having been at Mrs Gorgon Tompkins's ball on the previous evening. "It is rather against you than otherwise," said Spiffy, who was an extremely off-hand little fellow, and did not interrupt his discourse after he had nodded to me familiarly; "I can't afford to take you up yet; indeed, what have you ever done to merit it? and Mrs Gorgon Tompkins has enough to do this season to keep her own head above water without attempting to float you. I did what I could for her last night, but she can't expect to go on with her successes of last year. We had a regular scene at 6A.M.this morning, 'in banquet halls deserted'—tears, and all that sort of thing—nobody present but self, Gorgon, and partner. We took our last year's list, and compared them with the invitations sent out this year. The results were painful; only the fag-end of the diplomatic corps had responded—none of the great European powers present, and our own Cabinet most slenderly represented. Obliged to resort for young men to the byways and hedges; no expense spared, and yet the whole affair a miserable failure."
"Have you tried lobsters boiled in champagne at supper, as a draw?" said I.
"No," said Spiffy, looking at me with admiration; "I did not know this sort of thing was in your line, Frank." He had not the least right to call me Frank; but as everybody, whether they knew him or not, called him Spiffy, he always anticipated this description of familiarity.
"To tell you the truth, I could pull the Tompkinses through another season, but I am keeping all my best ideas for the Bodwinkles. Bodwinkles' first ball is to cost £2000. He wanted me to do it for £1500, and I should have been able to do it for that if Mrs Bodwinkle had had anyh's; but thecrême, de la crêmerequire an absence of aspirations to be made up to them somehow. Oh, with the extra £500 I can do it easily," said Spiffy, with an air of self-complacency. "She is a comparatively young woman, you see, without daughters; that simplifies matters very much. And then Bodwinkle can be so much more useful to political men than Gorgon Tompkins; the only fear is that he may commit himself at a late hour at the supper-table, but I have hit on a notion which will overcome all these possiblecontretemps."
"What is that?" said I, curiously.
"In confidence, I don't mind telling you, as you are not in the line yourself; but it is a master-stroke of genius. Like all great ideas, its merit lies in its simplicity."
"Don't keep us any longer in suspense; I promise not to appropriate it."
"Well," said Spiffy, triumphantly, "I am going topaythe aristocracy to come!"
"Pay them!" said I, really astounded; "how on earth are you going to get them to take the money?"
"Ah, that is the secret. Wait till the Bodwinkles' ball. You will see how delicately I shall contrive it; a great deal more neatly than you do when you leave your doctor's fee mysteriously wrapped in paper upon his mantelpiece. I shall no more hurt that high sense of honour, and that utter absence of anything like snobbism which characterises the best London Society, than a French cook would offend the nostrils of his guests with an overpowering odour of garlic; but it is a really grand idea."
"Worthy of Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, or the first Napoleon," said I; "posterity will recognise you as a social giant with a mission, if the small men and the envious of the present day refuse to do so."
"I don't mind telling you," Spiffy went on, "that the idea first occurred to me in a Scotch donkey-circus, where I won, as a prize for entering the show, a red plush waistcoat worth five shillings. The fact is, Bodwinkle is so anxious to get people, he would go to any expense; he has even offered me a commission on all the accepted invitations I send out for him, graduated on a scale proportioned to the rank of the acceptor. I am afraid it would not be considered quite the right thing to take it; what do you think?"
"I doubt whether society would stand that. You must bring them to it gradually. At present, I feel sure they would draw the line at a 'commission.' Apropos of the Bodwinkles, I want to have a little private conversation with you."
"I am awfully done," said Spiffy. "I never went to bed at all last night. I got some information about Turkish certificates before I went to the Tompkinses; then I stayed there till past six, and had to come on here at ten to turn what I knew to account. However, go ahead; what is it in? Jones here will do it for you. No need of mystery between us. 'Cosmopolitan district' is the sort of thing I can conscientiously recommend—I'll tell you why: I went down to the lobby of the House last night on purpose to hear what the fellows were saying who prowl about there pushing what my wretched tailor would call 'a little bill' through Committee. It is becoming a sort of 'ring,' and the favourites last night were light Cosmopolitans."
"What on earth are they as distinguished from heavy?" I asked.
"Jones, show his lordship the stock-list," said Spiffy, with a swagger.
The investigation of the "list" completely bewildered me. Why a £10 share should be worth £19, and a £100 share worth £99, 10s., in the same company, was not evident on the face of the document before me, so I looked into Spiffy's.
"Puzzling, isn't it?" said Spiffy.
"Very," I replied. "Now tell me," and I turned innocently towards Mr Jones, for Spiffy's expression was secretive and mysterious—"explain to me how it is that a share upon which only £10 has been paid, should be so much more valuable than one which has been fully paid up."
"Ask the syndicate," said Jones, looking at Spiffy in a significant way.
I felt quite startled, for I expected to see a group of foreigners composing this institution walk into the room. It was not until I had looked again to Spiffy for information, and was met by the single open eye of that gentleman, that I drew an inference and a very long breath.
"Spiffy," I said, "I am getting stifled—the moral atmosphere of this place is tainted; take me to the sweetest board-room in the neighbourhood—I want to speak to you on private business."
"Haven't time," said Spiffy, looking at his watch.
"Not to settle little Lady Broadhem's little affair?" said I, in a whisper.
Spiffy got uncommonly pale, but recovered himself in a second. "All right, old fellow;" and he poured a few hurried words in an incomprehensible dialect into Jones's ear, and led the way to the Suburban Washing-ground Company's board-room, which was the most minute apartment of the kind I had ever seen.
I shall not enter into the particulars of what passed between Spiffy and myself on this occasion. In the first place, it is so dry that it would bore you; in the second place, it was so complicated, and Spiffy's explanations seemed to complicate it so much the more, that I could not make it clear to you if I wished; and, in the last, I do not feel justified in divulging all Lady Broadhem's money difficulties and private crises. Suffice it to say, that in the course of our conversation Spiffy was obliged to confide to me many curious facts connected with his own line of life, and more especially with the peculiar functions which he exercised in his capacity of a "syndic," under the seal of solemn secrecy. Without the hold over him which this little insight into his transactions has given me, I should not be able to report so much of our conversation as I have. Nevertheless I thought it right to tell him how much of it he would shortly see in print.
"Gracious, Frank," said Spiffy, petrified with alarm, "you don't mean to say you are going to publish all I told you about the Gorgon Tompkinses and the Bodwinkles? How am I ever to keep them going if you do? Besides, there are a number of other fellows in the same line as I am. Just conceive the injury you will inflict upon society generally—nobody will thank you. The rich 'middles' who are looking forward to this kind of advancement will be furious; all of us 'promoters' will hate you, and 'la haute' will probably cut you. Why can't you keep quiet, instead of trying to get yourself and everybody else into hot water?"
"Spiffy," said I, solemnly, "when I devoted myself to 'mission work,' as they call it in Exeter Hall, I counted the cost, as you will see on referring back to my first chapter. I am still only at the beginning. I have a long and heavy task before me; but my only excuse for remaining in society is that I am labouring for its regeneration."
"You won't remain in it long," said Spiffy, "if you carry on in your present line. What do you want to do? Eradicate snobbism from the British breast?—never! We should all, from the highest to the lowest, perish of inanition without it."
"Society," said I, becoming metaphorical, "is like a fluid which is pervaded by that ingredient which you call 'snobbism,' the peculiarity of which is that you find it in equal perfection when it sinks to the bottom and becomes dregs, and when it rises to the surface and becomescrême—though of course it undergoes some curious chemical changes, according to its position. However, that is only one of the elements which pollute what should be a transparent fluid. I am subjecting it just now to a most minute and careful analysis, and I feel sure I shall succeed in obtaining an interesting 'precipitate.' I do most earnestly trust both you and the world at large will profit by my experiments."
"Frank, you are a lunatic," said Spiffy, with a yawn, for I was beginning to bore him. "I suppose I can't help your publishing what you like, only you will do yourself more harm than me. Let me know when society has 'precipitated' you out of it, and I will come and see you. Nobody else will. Good-bye!"
"He calls me a lunatic," I murmured, as I went down-stairs; "I thought that I should be most likely to hear the truth by applying to the Honourable Spiffington."
The same reasons which have compelled me to maintain a certain reserve in relating my conversation with this gentleman prevent me fully describing the steps which I am at present taking to arrange Lady Broadhem's affairs, and which will occupy me during the Easter recess. Now, thank goodness, I think I see my way to preventing the grand crash which she feared, but I decline to state the amount of my own fortune which will be sacrificed in the operation. The great inconvenience of the whole proceeding is the secrecy which it necessarily involves. Grandon is under the impression that I am gambling on the Stock Exchange, and is miserable in consequence, because he fancies I add to that sin the more serious one of denying it. Lady Ursula, whom I have avoided seeing alone, but who knows that I am constantly plotting in secret with her mother, is no doubt beginning to think that I am wicked as well as mad, and is evidently divided between the secret obligation of keeping the secret of my insanity, and her dread lest in some way or other her mother should be the victim of it. Lady Bridget is unmistakably afraid of me. The other day when I went into the drawing-room and found her alone, she turned as pale as a sheet, jumped up, and stammered out something about going to find mamma, and rushed out of the room. Did I not believe in Ursula as in my own existence, I could almost fancy she had betrayed me. Then there is Broadhem. He is utterly puzzled. He knows that I am come to pull the family out of the mess, and put his own cherished little person into a financially sound condition; and he is equally well assured that I would not make this sacrifice without feeling certain of marrying his sister. But, in the first place, that any man should sacrifice anything, either for his sister or any other woman, is a mystery to Broadhem; and, in the second, I strongly suspect that Ursula has said something which makes him very doubtful whether she is engaged to me or not. Poor girl! I feel for her. Was ever a daughter and sister before placed in the embarrassing position of leaving her own mother and brother in the delusion that she was engaged to be married to a man who had never breathed to her the subject of his love, much less of matrimony? Then Spiffy and Lady Broadhem's lawyer both look upon the marriage as settled: how else can they account for the trouble I am taking, and the liberality I am displaying? There is something mysterious, moreover, in the terms upon which I am in the house. Lady Broadhem is beginning to think it unnatural that I should not care to see more of Ursula; and whenever she is not quite absorbed with considering her own affairs, is making the arrangement known among mammas by the expression, "bringing the young people together"—as if any young people who really cared to be together, could not bring themselves together without mamma or anybody else interfering. Fortunately Lady Broadhem is so much more taken up with her own speculations than with either her daughter's happiness or mine, that I am always able to give the conversation a City turn when she broaches the delicate subject of Ursula. How Ursula manages on these occasions I cannot conceive, but I do my best to prevent Lady Broadhem talking about me to her, as I always say mysteriously, that if she does, "it will spoil everything"—an alarming phrase, which produces an immediate effect. Still it is quite clear that this kind of thing can't continue long. If I can only keep matters going for a few days more, they will all be out of town for Easter, and that will give me time to breathe. As it is, it is impossible to shut my eyes to the fact, that my best friend is beginning to doubt me—that the girl I love dreads me—and that the rest of the family, and those sufficiently connected with it to observe my proceedings, either pity, laugh at, or despise me. This, however, by no means prevents their using their utmost endeavours to ruin me. That is the present state of matters. The situation cannot remain unchanged during the next four weeks. Have I your sympathies, dear reader? Do you wish me well out of it?