Charles's duties were light enough; he often wished they had been heavier. There were such long idle periods left for thinking and brooding. He rather wondered at first why he was not more employed. He never was in attendance on the lieutenant, save in the daytime. One of the young men under him drove the brougham, and was out all night and in bed all day; and the other was a mere stable-lad from the country. Charles's duty consisted almost entirely in dressing himself about two o'clock,and loitering about town after his master; and, after he had been at this work about a fortnight, it seemed to him as if he had been at it a year or more.
Charles soon found out all he cared to know about the lieutenant. He was the only son and heir of an eminent solicitor, lately deceased, who had put him into the splendid regiment to which he belonged in order to get him into good society. The young fellow had done well enough in that way. He was amazingly rich, amazingly handsome, and passionately fond of his profession, at which he really worked hard; but he was terribly fast. Charles soon found that out; and the first object which he placed before himself, when he began to awaken from the first dead torpor which came on him after his fall, was to gain influence with him and save him from ruin.
"He is burning the candle at both ends," said Charles. "He is too good to go to the deuce. In time, if I am careful, he may listen to me."
And, indeed, it seemed probable. From the very first, Hornby had treated Charles with great respect and consideration. Hornby knew he was a gentleman. One morning, before Charles had been many days with him, the brougham had not come into the mews till seven o'clock; and Charles, going to his lodgings at eight, had found him in uniform, bolting a cup of coffee before going on duty. There was a great pile of money, sovereigns and notes, on the dressing-table, and he caught Charles looking at it.
Hornby laughed. "What are you looking at with that solemn face of yours?" said he.
"Nothing, sir," said Charles.
"You are looking at that money," said Hornby; "and you are thinking that it would be as well if I didn't stay out all night playing—eh?"
"I might have thought so, sir," said Charles. "I did think so."
"Quite right, too. Some day I will leave off, perhaps."
And then he rattled out of the room, and Charles watched him riding down the street, all blue, and scarlet, and gold, a brave figure, with the world at his feet.
"There is time yet," said Charles.
The first time Charles made his appearance in livery in the street he felt horribly guilty. He was in continual terror lest he should meet some one he knew; but, after a time, when he found that day after day he could walk about and see never a familiar face, he grew bolder. He wished sometimes he could see some one he knew from a distance, so as not to be recognised—it was so terrible lonely.
Day after day he saw the crowds pass him in the street, and recognised no one. In old times, when he used to come to London on a raid from Oxford, he fancied he used to recognise an acquaintance at every step; but now, day after day went on, and he saw no one he knew. The world had become to him like a long uneasy dream of strange faces.
After a very few days of his new life, there began to grow on him a desire to hear of those he had left so abruptly; a desire which was at first mere curiosity, but which soon developed into a yearning regret. At first, after a week or so, he began idly wondering where they all were, and what they thought of his disappearance; and at this time, perhaps, he may have felt a little conceited in thinking how he occupied their thoughts, and of what importance he had made himself by his sudden disappearance. But his curiosity and vanity soon wore away, and were succeeded by a deep gnawing desire to hear something of them all—to catch hold of some little thread, however thin, which should connect him with his past life, and with those he had loved so well. He would have died in his obstinacy sooner than move one inch towards his object; but every day, as he rode about the town, dressed in the livery of servitude, which he tried to think was his heritage, and yet of which he was ashamed, he stared hither and thither at the passing faces, trying to find one, were it only that of the meanest servant, which should connect him with the past.
At last, and before long, he saw some one.
One afternoon he was under orders to attend his master on horseback, as usual. After lunch, Hornby came out, beautifully dressed, handsome and happy, and rode up Grosvenor Place into the park. At the entrance to Rotten Row he joined an old gentleman and his two daughters, and they rode together, chatting pleasantly. Charles rode behind with the other groom, who talked to him about the coming Derby, and would have betted against Haphazard at the current odds. They rode up and down the Row twice, and then Hornby, calling Charles, gave him his horse and walked about by the Serpentine, talking to every one, and getting a kindly welcome from great and small, for the son of a great attorney, with wealth, manners, and person, may get into very good society, if he is worth it; or, quite possibly, if he isn't.
Then Hornby and Charles left the park, and, coming down Grosvenor Place, passed into Pall Mall. Here Hornby went into a club, and left Charles waiting in the street with his horse half an hour or more.
Then he mounted again, and rode up St. James's Street, into Piccadilly. He turned to the left; and, at the bottom of the hill, not far from Half-moon Street, he went into a private house, and, giving Charles his reins, told him to wait for him; and so Charles waited there, in the afternoon sun, watching what went by.
It was a sleepy afternoon, and the horses stood quiet, and Charles was a contented fellow, and he rather liked dozing there and watching the world go by. There is plenty to see in Piccadilly on an afternoon in the season, even for a passer-by; but, sitting on a quiet horse, with nothing to do or think about, one can see it all better. And Charles had some humour in him, and so he was amused at what he saw, and would have sat there an hour or more without impatience.
Opposite to him was a great bonnet-shop, and in front of it was an orange-woman. A grand carriage dashed up to the bonnet-shop, so that he had to move his horses, and the orange-woman had to get out of the way. Two young ladies got out of the carriage, went in, and (as he believes) bought bonnets, leaving a third, and older one, sitting in a back seat, who nursed a pug dog, with a blue riband. Neither the coachman nor footman belonging to the carriage seemed to mind this lady. The footman thought he would like some oranges; so he went to the orange-woman. The orange-woman was Irish, for her speech bewrayed her, and the footman was from the county Clare; so those two instantly began comparing notes about those delectable regions, to such purpose, that the two ladies, having, let us hope, suited themselves in the bonnet way, had to open their own carriage-door and get in, before the footman was recalled to a sense of his duties—after which he shut the door, and they drove away.
Then there came by a blind man. It was not the same blind man that Charles saw fall down the area, because that blind man's dog was a brown one, with a curly tail, and this one's dog was black with no tail at all. Moreover, the present dog carried a basket, which the other one did not. Otherwise they were so much alike (all blind men are), that Charles might have mistaken one for the other. This blind man met with no such serious accident as the other, either. Only, turning into the public-house at the corner, opposite Mr. Hope's, the dog lagged behind, and, the swing-doors closing between him and his master, Charles saw him pulled through by his chain, and nearly throttled.
Next there came by Lord Palmerston, with his umbrella on his shoulder, walking airily arm-in-arm with Lord John Russell. They were talking together; and, as they passed, Charles heard Lord Palmerston say that it was much warmer on this side of thestreet than on the other. With which proposition Lord John Russell appeared to agree; and so they passed on westward.
After this there came by three prize fighters, arm-in-arm; each of them had a white hat and a cigar; two had white bull-dogs, and one a black-and-tan terrier. They made a left wheel, and looked at Charles and his horses, and then they made a right wheel, and looked into the bonnet-shop; after which they went into the public-house into which the blind man had gone before; and, from the noise which immediately arose from inside, Charles came to the conclusion that the two white bull-dogs and the black-and-tan terrier had set upon the blind man's dog, and touzled him.
After the prize-fighters came Mr. Gladstone, walking very fast. A large Newfoundland dog with a walking-stick in his mouth blundered up against him, and nearly threw him down. Before he got under way again, the Irish orange-woman bore down on him, and faced him with three oranges in each hand, offering them for sale. Did she know, with the sagacity of her nation, that he was then on his way to the house, to make a Great Statement, and that he would want oranges? I cannot say. He probably got his oranges at Bellamy's for he bought none of her. After him came a quantity of indifferent people; and then Charles's heart beat high—for here was some one coming whom he knew with a vengeance.
Lord Welter, walking calmly down the street, with his big chest thrown out, and his broad, stupid face in moody repose. He was thinking. He came so close to Charles that, stepping aside to avoid a passer-by, he whitened the shoulder of his coat against the pipe-clay on Charles's knee; then he stood stock still within six inches of him, but looking the other way towards the houses.
He pulled off one of his gloves and bit his nails. Though his back was towards Charles, still Charles knew well what expression was on his face as he did that. The old cruel lowering of the eyebrows, and pinching in of the lips was there, he knew. The same expression as that which Marston remarked the time he quarrelled with Cuthbert once at Ravenshoe—mischief!
He went into the house where Charles's master, Hornby, was; and Charles sat and wondered.
Presently there came out on to the balcony above, six or seven well-dressed young men, who lounged with their elbows on the red cushions which were fixed to the railing, and talked, looking at the people in the street.
Lord Welter and Lieutenant Hornby were together at the end. There was no scowl on Welter's face now; he was making himselfagreeable. Charles watched him and Hornby; the conversation between them got eager, and they seemed to make an appointment. After that they parted, and Hornby came down stairs and got on his horse.
They rode very slowly home. Hornby bowed right and left to the people he knew but seemed absent. When Charles took his horse at the door, he said suddenly to Charles—
"I have been talking to a man who knows something of you, I believe—Lord Welter."
"Did you mention me to him, sir?"
"No; I didn't think of it."
"You would do me a great kindness if you would not do so, sir."
"Why," said Hornby, looking suddenly up.
"I am sorry I cannot enter into particulars, sir; but, if I thought he would know where I was, I should at once quit your service and try to lose myself once more."
"Lose yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
"H'm!" said Hornby, thoughtfully. "Well, I know there is something about you which I don't understand. I ain't sure it is any business of mine though. I will say nothing. You are not a man to chatter about anything you see. Mind you don't. You see how I trust you." And so he went in, and Charles went round to the stable.
"Is the brougham going out to night?" he asked of his fellow-servant.
"Ordered at ten," said the man. "Night-work again, I expect, I wanted to get out too. Consume the darned card-playing. Was you going anywhere to-night?"
"Nowhere," said Charles.
"It's a beautiful evening," said the man. "If you should by chance saunter up towards Grosvenor Square, and could leave a note for me, I should thank you very much; upon my soul I should."
I don't think Charles ever hesitated at doing a good-natured action in his life. A request to him was like a command. It came as natural to him now to take a dirty, scrawled love-letter from a groom to a scullery-maid as in old times it did to lend a man fifty pounds. He said at once he would go with great pleasure.
The man (a surly fellow enough at ordinary times) thanked him heartily; and, when Charles had got the letter, he sauntered away in that direction slowly, thinking of many things.
"By Jove," he said to himself, "my scheme of hiding does not seem to be very successful. Little more than a fortnight gone, and I am thrown against Welter. What a strange thing!"
It was still early in the afternoon—seven o'clock, or thereabouts—and he was opposite Tattersall's. A mail phaeton, with a pair of splendid horses, attracted his attention and diverted his thoughts. He turned down. Two eminent men on the turf walked past him up the nearly empty yard, and he heard one say to the other—
"Ascot will run to win; that I know. Hemust. If Haphazard can stay, he is safe."
To which the other said, "Pish!" and they passed on.
"There they are again," said Charles, as he turned back. "The very birds of the air are talking about them. It gets interesting, though—if anything could ever be interesting again."
St. George's Hospital. At the door was a gaudily-dressed, handsome young woman, who was asking the porter could she see some one inside. No. The visiting hours were over. She stood for a few minutes on the steps, impatiently biting her nails, and then fluttered down the street.
What made him think of his sister Ellen? She must be found. That was the only object in the world, so to speak. There was nothing to be done, only to wait and watch.
"I shall find her some day, in God's good time."
The world had just found out that it was hungry, and was beginning to tear about in wheeled vehicles to its neighbours' houses to dinner. As the carriages passed Charles, he could catch glimpses of handsome girls, all a mass of white muslin, swan's-down fans, and fal-lals, going to begin their night's work; of stiff dandies, in white ties, yawning already; of old ladies in jewels, and old gentlemen buttoned up across the chest, going, as one might say, to see fair play among the young people. And then our philosophical Charles pleased himself by picturing how, in two months more, the old gentlemen would be among their turnips, the old ladies among their flowers and poor folks, the dandies creeping, creeping, weary hours through the heather, till the last maddening moment when the big stag was full in view, sixty yards off; and (prettiest thought of all), how the girls, with their thick shoes on, would be gossiping with old Goody Blake and Harry Gill, or romping with the village school-children on the lawn. Right, old Charles, with all but the dandies! For now the apotheosis of dandies was approaching. The time was coming when so many of them should disappear into that black thunder-cloudto the south, and be seen no more in park or club, in heather or stubble.
But, in that same year, the London season went on much as usual; only folks talked of war, and the French were more popular than they are now. And through the din and hubbub poor Charles passed on like a lost sheep, and left his fellow-servant's note at an area in Grosvenor Square.
"And which," said he to the man who took it, with promises of instant delivery, "is my Lord Hainault's house, now, for instance?"
Lord Hainault's house was the other side of the square; number something. Charles thanked the man, and went across. When he had made it out he leant his back against the railings of the square, and watched it.
The carriage was at the door. The coachman, seeing a handsomely-dressed groom leaning against the rails, called to him to come over and alter some strap or another. Charles ran over and helped him. Charles supposed her ladyship was going out to dinner. Yes, her ladyship was now coming out. And, almost before Charles had time to move out of the way, out she came, with her head in the air, more beautiful than ever, and drove away.
He went back to his post from mere idleness. He wondered whether Mary had come there yet or not. He had half a mind to inquire, but was afraid of being seen. He still leant against the railings of the gate, as I said, in mere idleness, when he heard the sound of children's voices in the square behind.
"That woman," said a child's voice, "was a gipsy-woman. I looked through the rails, and I said, 'Hallo, ma'am, what are you doing there?' And she asked me for a penny. And I said I couldn't give her anything, for I had given three halfpence to the Punch and Judy, and I shouldn't have any more money till next Saturday, which was quite true, Flora, as you know."
"But, Gus," said another child's voice, "if she had been a gipsy-woman she would have tried to steal you, and make you beg in the streets; or else she would have told your fortune in coffee-grounds. I don't think she was a real gipsy."
"I should like to have my fortune told in the coffee-grounds," said Gus; "but, if she had tried to steal me, I should have kicked her in the stomach. There is a groom outside there; let us ask him. Grooms go to the races, and see heaps of gipsies! I say, sir."
Charles turned. A child's voice was always music to him. He had such a look on his face as he turned to them, that thechildren had his confidence in an instant. The gipsy question was laid before him instantly, by both Gus and Flora, with immense volubility, and he was just going to give an oracular opinion through the railings, when a voice—a low, gentle voice, which made him start—came from close by.
"Gus and Flora, my dears, the dew is falling. Let us go in."
"There is Miss Corby," said Gus. "Let us run to her."
They raced to Mary. Soon after the three came to the gate, laughing, and passed close to him. The children were clinging to her skirt and talking merrily. They formed a pretty little group as they went across the street, and Mary's merry little laugh comforted him. "She is happy there," he said; "best as it is!"
Once, when half-way across the street, she turned and looked towards him, before he had time to turn away. He saw that she did not dream of his being there, and went on. And so Charles sauntered home through the pleasant summer evening, saying to himself, "I think she is happy; I am glad she laughed."
"Three meetings in one day! I shall be found out, if I don't mind. I must be very careful."
The servants, I mean the stable servants, who lived in the mews where Charles did, had a club; and, a night or two after he had seen Mary in the square, he was elected a member of it. The duke's coachman, a wiry, grey, stern-looking, elderly man, waited upon him and informed him of the fact. He said that such a course was very unusual—in fact, without precedent. Men, he said, were seldom elected to the club until they were known to have been in good service for some years; but he (coachman) had the ear of the club pretty much, and had brought him in triumphant. He added that he could see through a brick wall as well as most men, and that when he see agentlemandressed in a livery, moping and brooding about the mews, he had said to himself that he wanted a little company, such as it was, to cheer him up, and so he had requested the club, &c.; and the club had done as he told them.
"Now this is confoundedly kind of you," said Charles; "but I am not a gentleman; I am a gamekeeper's son."
"I suppose you can read Greek, now, can't you?" said the coachman.
Charles was obliged to confess he could.
"Of course," said the coachman; "all gamekeepers' sons is forced to learn Greek, in order as they may slang the poachers in an unknown tongue. Fiddle-dedee! I know all about it; least-wise, guess. Come along with me; why, I've got sons as old as you. Come along."
"Are they in service?" said Charles, by way of something to say.
"Two of 'em are, but one's in the army."
"Indeed!" said Charles, with more interest.
"Ay; he is in your governor's regiment."
"Does he like it?" said Charles. "I should like to know him."
"Like it?—don't he?" said the coachman. "See what society he gets into. I suppose there ain't no gentlemen's sons troopers in that regiment, eh? Oh dear no. Don't for a moment suppose it, young man. Not at all."
Charles was very much interested by this news. He made up his mind there and then that he would enlist immediately. But he didn't; he only thought about it.
Charles found that the club was composed of about a dozen coachmen and superior pad-grooms. They were very civil to him, and to one another. There was nothing to laugh at. There was nothing that could be tortured into ridicule. They talked about their horses and their business quite naturally. There was an air of kindly fellowship, and a desire for mutual assistance among them, which, at times, Charles had not noticed at the university. One man sang a song, and sang it very prettily, too, about stag-hunting. He had got as far as—
"As every breath with sobs he drew,The labouring buck strained full in view,"
"As every breath with sobs he drew,The labouring buck strained full in view,"
when the door opened, and an oldish groom came in.
The song was not much attended to now. When the singer had finished, the others applauded him, but impatiently; and then there was a general exclamation of "Well?"
"I've just come down from the Corner. There has been a regular run against Haphazard, and no one knows why. Something wrong with the horse, I suppose, because there's been no run on any other in particular, only against him."
"Was Lord Ascot there?" said some one.
"Ah, that he was. Wouldn't bet though, even at the long odds. Said he'd got every sixpence he was worth on the horse, and would stand where he was; and that's true, they say. And master says, likewise, that Lord Welter would have taken 'em, but that his father stopped him."
"That looks queerish," said some one else.
"Ay, and wasn't there a jolly row, too?"
"Who with?" asked several.
"Lord Welter and Lord Hainault. It happened outside, close to me. Lord Hainault was walking across the yard, and Lord Welter came up to him and said, 'How d'ye do, Hainault?' and Lord Hainault turned round and said, quite quiet, 'Welter, you are a scoundrel!' And Lord Welter said, 'Hainault, you are out of your senses;' but he turned pale, too, and he looked—Lord! I shouldn't like to have been before him—and Lord Hainault says, 'You know what I mean;' and Lord Welter says, 'No, I don't; but, by Gad, you shall tell me;' and then the other says, as steady as a rock, 'I'll tell you. You are a man that one daren't leave a woman alone with. Where's that Casterton girl? Where's Adelaide Summers? Neither a friend's house, nor your own father's house, is any protection for a woman against you.' 'Gad,' says Lord Welter, 'you were pretty sweet on the last-named yourself, once on a time.'"
"Well!" said some one, "and what did Lord Hainault say?"
"He said, 'you are a liar and a scoundrel, Welter.' And then Lord Welter came at him; but Lord Ascot came between them, shaking like anything, and says he, 'Hainault, go away, for God's sake; you don't know what you are saying.—Welter, be silent.' But they made no more of he than——" (here our friend was at a loss for a simile).
"But how did it end?" asked Charles.
"Well," said the speaker, "General Mainwaring came up, and laid his hand on Lord Welter's shoulder, and took him off pretty quiet. And that's all I know about it."
It was clearly all. Charles rose to go, and walked by himself from street to street, thinking.
Suppose hewasto be thrown against Lord Welter, how should he act? what should he say? Truly it was a puzzling question. The anomaly of his position was never put before him more strikingly than now. What could he say? what could he do?
After the first shock, the thought of Adelaide's unfaithfulness was not so terrible as on the first day or two; many little unamiable traits of character, vanity, selfishness, and so on, unnoticedbefore, began to come forth in somewhat startling relief. Anger, indignation, and love, all three jumbled up together, each one by turns in the ascendant, were the frames of mind in which Charles found himself when he began thinking about her. One moment he was saying to himself, "How beautiful she was!" and the next, "She was as treacherous as a tiger; she never could have cared for me." But, when he came to think of Welter, his anger overmastered everything, and he would clench his teeth as he walked along, and for a few moments feel the blood rushing to his head and singing in his ears. Let us hope that Lord Welter will not come across him while he is in that mood, or there will be mischief.
But his anger was soon over. He had just had one of these fits of anger as he walked along; and he was, like a good fellow, trying to conquer it, by thinking of Lord Welter as he was as a boy, and before he was a villain, when he came before St. Peter's Church, in Eaton Square, and stopped to look at some fine horses which were coming out of Salter's.
At the east end of St. Peter's Church there is a piece of bare white wall in a corner, and in front of the wall was a little shoeblack.
He was not one of the regular brigade, with a red shirt, but an "Arab" of the first water. He might have been seven or eight years old, but was small. His whole dress consisted of two garments; a ragged shirt, with no buttons, and half of one sleeve gone, and a ragged pair of trousers, which, small as he was, were too small for him, and barely reached below his knees. His feet and head were bare; and under a wild, tangled shock of hair looked a pretty, dirty, roguish face, with a pair of grey, twinkling eyes, which was amazingly comical. Charles stopped, watching him, and, as he did so, felt what we have most of us felt, I dare say—that, at certain times of vexation and anger, the company and conversation of children is the best thing for us.
The little man was playing at fives against the bare wall, with such tremendous energy, that he did not notice that Charles had stopped, and was looking at him. Every nerve in his wiry, lean little body was braced up to the game; his heart and soul were as deeply enlisted in it, as though he were captain of the eleven, or stroke of the eight.
He had no ball to play with, but he played with a brass button. The button flew hither and thither, being so irregular in shape, and the boy dashed after it like lightning. At last, after he had kept up five-and-twenty or so, the button flew over his head, and lighted at Charles's feet.
As the boy turned to get it, his eyes met Charles's, and he stopped, parting the long hair from his forehead, and gazing on him, till the beautiful little face—beautiful through dirt and ignorance and neglect—lit up with a smile, as Charles looked at him, with the kind, honest old expression. And so began their acquaintance, almost comically at first.
Charles don't care to talk much about that boy now. If he ever does, it is to recall his comical, humorous sayings and doings in the first part of their strange friendship. He never speaks of the end, even to me.
The boy stood smiling at him, as I said, holding his long hair out of his eyes; and Charles looked on him and laughed, and forgot all about Welter and the rest of them at once.
"I want my boots cleaned," he said.
The boy said, "I can't clean they dratted top-boots. I cleaned a groom's boots a Toosday, and he punched my block because I blacked the tops. Where did that button go?"
And Charles said, "You can clean the lower part of my boots, and do no harm. Your button is here against the lamp-post."
The boy picked it up, and got his apparatus ready. But, before he began, he looked up in Charles's face, as if he was going to speak; then he began vigorously, but in half a minute looked up again, and stopped.
Charles saw that the boy liked him, and wanted to talk to him; so he began, severely—
"How came you to be playing fives with a brass button, eh?"
The boy struck work at once, and answered, "I ain't got no ball."
"If you begin knocking stamped pieces of metal about in the street," continued Charles, "you will come to chuck-farthing, and from chuck-farthing to the gallows is a very short step indeed, I can assure you."
The boy did not seem to know whether Charles was joking or not. He cast a quick glance up at his face; but, seeing no sign of a smile there, he spat on one of his brushes, and said—
"Not if you don't cheat, it aint."
Charles suffered the penalty, which usually follows on talking nonsense, of finding himself in a dilemma; so he said imperiously—
"I shall buy you a ball to-morrow; I am not going to have you knocking buttons about against people's walls in broad daylight, like that."
It was the first time that the boy had ever heard nonsense talked in his life. It was a new sensation. He gave asharp look up into Charles's face again, and then went on with his work.
"Where do you live, my little manikin?" said Charles directly, in that quiet pleasant voice I know so well.
The boy did not look up this time. It was not very often, possibly, that he got spoken to so kindly by his patrons; he worked away, and answered that he lived in Marquis Court, in Southwark.
"Why do you come so far, then?" asked Charles.
The boy told him why he plodded so wearily, day after day, over here in the West-end. It was for family reasons, into which I must not go too closely. Somebody, it appeared, still came home, now and then, just once in a way, to see her mother, and to visit the den where she was bred; and there was still left one who would wait for her, week after week—still one pair of childish feet, bare and dirty, that would patter back beside her—still one childish voice that would prattle with her, on her way to her hideous home, and call her sister.
"Have you any brothers?"
Five altogether. Jim was gone for a sojer, it appeared, and Nipper was sent over the water. Harry was on the cross—
"On the cross?" said Charles.
"Ah!" the boy said, "he goes out cly-faking, and such. He's a prig, and a smart one, too. He's fly, is Harry."
"But what is cly-faking?" said Charles.
"Why a-prigging of wipes, and sneeze-boxes, and ridicules, and such."
Charles was not so ignorant of slang as not to understand what his little friend meant now. He said—
"Butyouare not a thief, are you?"
The boy looked up at him frankly and honestly, and said—
"Lord bless you, no! I shouldn't make no hand of that. I ain't brave enough for that!"
He gave the boy twopence, and gave orders that one penny was to be spent in a ball. And then he sauntered listlessly away—every day more listless, and not three weeks gone yet.
His mind returned to this child very often. He found himself thinking more about the little rogue than he could explain. The strange babble of the child, prattling so innocently, and, as he thought, so prettily, about vice, and crime, and misery; about one brother transported, one a thief—and you see he could love his sister even to the very end of it all. Strange babble indeed from a child's lips.
He thought of it again and again, and then, dressing himselfplainly, he went up to Grosvenor Square, where Mary would be walking with Lord Charles Herries's children. He wanted to hearthemtalk.
He was right in his calculations; the children were there. All three of them this time; and Mary was there too. They were close to the rails, and he leant his back on them, and heard every word.
"Miss Corby," said Gus, "if Lady Ascot is such a good woman, she will go to heaven when she dies?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear," said Mary.
"And, when grandma dies, will she go to heaven, too?" said the artful Gus, knowing as well as possible that old Lady Hainault and Lady Ascot were deadly enemies.
"I hope so, my dear," said Mary.
"But does Lady Ascot hope so? Do you think grandma would be happy if——"
It became high time to stop master Gus, who was getting on too fast. Mary having bowled him out, Miss Flora had an innings.
"When I grow up," said Flora, "I shall wear knee-breeches and top-boots, and a white bull-dog, and a long clay pipe, and I shall drive into Henley on a market-day and put up at the Catherine Wheel."
Mary had breath enough left to ask why.
"Because Farmer Thompson at Casterton dresses like that, and he is such a dear old darling. He gives us strawberries and cream; and in his garden are gooseberries and peacocks; and the peacock's wives don't spread out their tails like their husbands do—the foolish things. Now, when I am married——"
Gus was rude enough to interrupt her here. He remarked—
"When Archy goes to heaven, he'll want the cat to come to bed with him; and, if he can't get her, there'll be a pretty noise."
"My dears," said Mary, "you must not talk anymore nonsense; I can't permit it."
"But, my dear Miss Corby," said Flora, "we haven't been talking nonsense, have we? I told you the truth about Farmer Thompson."
"I know what she means," said Gus; "we have been saying what came into our heads, and it vexes her. It is all nonsense, you know, about your wearing breeches and spreading out your tail like a peacock; we mustn't vex her."
Flora didn't answer Gus, but answered Mary by climbing on her knee and kissing her. "Tell us a story, dear," said Gus.
"What shall I tell?" said Mary.
"Tell us about Ravenshoe," said Flora; "tell us about the fishermen, and the priest that walked about like a ghost in the dark passages; and about Cuthbert Ravenshoe, who was always saying his prayers; and about the other one who won the boat race."
"Which one?" said silly Mary.
"Why, the other; the one you like best. What was his name?"
"Charles!"
How quietly and softly she said it! The word left her lips like a deep sigh. One who heard it was a gentleman still. He had heard enough, perhaps too much, and walked away towards the stable and the public-house, leaving her in the gathering gloom of the summer's evening under the red hawthorns, and laburnums, among the children. And, as he walked away, he thought of the night he left Ravenshoe, when the little figure was standing in the hall all alone. "She might have loved me, and I her," he said, "if the world were not out of joint; God grant it may not be so!" And although he said, "God grant that she may not," he really wished it had been so; and from this very time Mary began to take Adelaide's place in his heart.
Not that he was capable of falling in love with any woman at this time. He says he was crazy, and I believe him to a certain extent. It was a remarkably lucky thing for him that he had so diligently neglected his education. If he had not, and had found himself in his present position, with three or four times more of intellectual cravings to be satisfied, he would have gone mad, or taken to drinking. I, who write, have seen the thing happen.
But, before the crash came, I have seen Charles patiently spending the morning cutting gun-wads from an old hat, in preference to going to his books. It was this interest in trifles which saved him just now. He could think at times, and had had education enough to think logically; but his brain was not so active but that he could cut gun-wads for an hour or so; though his friend William could cut one-third more gun-wads out of an old hat than he.
He was thinking now, in his way, about these children—about Gus and Flora on the one hand, and the little shoeblack on the other. Both so innocent and pretty, and yet so different. He had taken himself from the one world and thrown himself into the other. There were two worlds and two standards—gentlemenand non-gentlemen. The "lower orders" did not seem to be so particular about the character of their immediate relations as the upper. That was well, for he belonged to the former now, and had a sister. If one of Lord Charles Herries's children had gone wrong, Gus and Flora would never have talked of him or her to a stranger. He must learn the secret of this armour which made the poor so invulnerable. He must go and talk to the little shoeblack.
He thought that was the reason why he went to look after the little rogue next day; but that was not the real reason. The reason was, that he had found a friend in a lower grade than himself, who would admire him and look up to him. The first friend of that sort he had made since his fall. What that friend accidentally saved him from, we shall see.
Hornby was lying on his back on the sofa in the window and looking out. He had sent for Charles, and Charles was standing beside him; but he had not noticed him yet. In a minute Charles said, "You sent for me, sir."
Hornby turned sharply round. "By Jove, yes," he said, looking straight at him; "Lord Welter is married."
Charles did not move a muscle, and Hornby looked disappointed. Charles only said—
"May I ask who she is, sir?"
"She is a Miss Summers. Do you know anything of her?"
Charles knew Miss Summers quite well by sight—had attended her while riding, in fact. A statement which, though strictly true, misled Hornby more than fifty lies.
"Handsome?"
"Remarkably so. Probably the handsomest (he was going to say 'girl,' but said 'lady') I ever saw in my life."
"H'm!" and he sat silent a moment, and gave Charles time to think. "I am glad he has married her, and before to-morrow, too."
"Well," said Hornby again, "we shall go down in the drag to-morrow. Ferrers will drive, he says. I suppose he had better;he drives better than I. Make the other two lads come in livery, but come in black trousers yourself. Wear your red waistcoat; you can button your coat over it, if it is necessary."
"Shall I wear my cockade, sir?"
"Yes; that won't matter. Can you fight?"
Charles said to himself, "I suppose we shall be in Queer Street to-morrow, then;" but he rather liked the idea. "I used to like it," said he aloud. "I don't think I care about it now. Last year, at Oxford, I and three other University men, three Pauls and a Brazenose, had a noble stramash on Folly-bridge. That is the last fighting I have seen."
"What College were you at?" said Hornby, looking out at the window; "Brazenose?"
"Paul's," said Charles without thinking.
"Then you are the man Welter was telling me about—Charles Ravenshoe."
Charles saw it was no good to fence, and said, "Yes."
"By Jove," said Hornby, "yours is a sad story. You must have ridden out with Lady Welter more than once, I take it."
"Are you going to say anything to Lord Welter, sir?"
"Not I. I like you too well to lose you. You will stick by me, won't you?"
"I will," said Charles, "to the death. But oh, Hornby, for any sake mind those d——d bones!"
"I will. But don't be an ass: I don't play half as much as you think."
"You are playing with Welter now, sir; are you not?"
"You are a pretty dutiful sort of a groom, I don't think," said Hornby, looking round and laughing good-naturedly. "What the dickens do you mean by cross-questioning me like that? Yes, I am. There—and for a noble purpose too."
Charles said no more, but was well pleased enough. If Hornby had only given him a little more of his confidence!
"I suppose," said Hornby, "if Haphazard don't win to-morrow, Lord Ascot will be a beggar."
"They say," said Charles, "that he has backed his own horse through thick and thin, sir. It is inconceivable folly; but things could not be worse at Ranford, and he stands to win some sum on the horse, as they say, which would put everything right; and the horse is a favourite."
"Favourites never win," said Hornby; "and I don't think that Lord Ascot has so much on him as they say."
So the next day they went to the Derby. Sir Robert Ferrer, of the Guards drove (this is Inkerman Bob, and he has got apatent cork leg now, and a Victoria Cross, and goes a-shooting on a grey cob); and there was Red Maclean, on furlough from India; and there was Lord Swansea, youngest of existing Guardsmen, who blew a horn, and didn't blow it at all well; and there were two of Lieutenant Hornby's brother-officers, besides the Lieutenant: and behind, with Hornby's two grooms and our own Charles, dressed in sober black, was little Dick Ferrers, of the Home Office, who carried a peashooter, and pea-shot the noses of the leading horses of a dragful of Plungers, which followed them—which thing, had he been in the army, he wouldn't have dared to do. And the Plungers swore, and the dust flew, and the wind blew, and Sir Robert drove, and Charles laughed, and Lord Swansea gave them a little music, and away they went to the Derby.
When they came on the course, Charles and his fellow-servants had enough to do to get the horses out and see after them. After nearly an hour's absence he got back to the drag, and began to look about him.
The Plungers had drawn up behind them, and were lolling about. Before them was a family party—a fine elderly gentleman, a noble elderly lady, and two uncommonly pretty girls; and they were enjoying themselves. They were too well bred to make a noise; but there was a subdued babbling sound of laughter in that carriage, which was better music than that of a little impish German who, catching Charles's eye, played the accordion and waltzed before him, as did Salome before Herod, but with a different effect.
The carriage beyond that was a very handsome one, and in it sat a lady most beautifully dressed, alone. By the step of the carriage were a crowd of men—Hornby, Hornby's brother-officers, Sir Robert Ferrers, and even little Dick Ferrers. Nay, there was a Plunger there; and they were all talking and laughing at the top of their voices.
Charles, goose as he was, used to be very fond of Dickens's novels. He used to say that almost everywhere in those novels you came across a sketch, may be unconnected with the story, as bold and true and beautiful as those chalk sketches of Raphael in the Taylor—scratches which, when once seen, you could never forget any more. And, as he looked at that lady in the carriage, he was reminded of one of Dickens's master-pieces in that way, out of the "Old Curiosity Shop"—of a lady sitting in a carriage all alone at the races, who bought Nell's poor flowers, and bade her go home and stay there, for God's sake.
Her back was towards him, of course; yet he guessed she wasbeautiful. "She is a fast woman, God help her!" said he; and he determined to go and look at her.
He sauntered past the carriage, and turned to look at her. It was Adelaide.
As faultlessly beautiful as ever, but ah—how changed! The winning petulance, so charming in other days, was gone from that face for ever. Hard, stern, proud, defiant, she sat there upright, alone. Fallen from the society of all women of her own rank, she knew—who better?—that not one of those men chattering around her would have borne to see her in the company of his sister, viscountess though she were, countess and mother of earls as she would be. They laughed, and lounged, and joked before her; and she tolerated them, and cast her gibes hither and thither among them, bitterly and contemptuously. It was her first appearance in the world. She had been married three days.
Not a woman would speak to her: Lord Welter had coarsely told her so that morning; and bitterness and hatred were in her heart. It was for this she had bartered honour and good fame. She had got her title, flung to her as a bone to a dog by Welter; but her social power, for which she had sold herself, was lower, far lower, than when she was poor Adelaide Summers.
It is right that it should be so, as a rule; in her case it was doubly right.
Charles knew all this well enough. And at the first glance at her face he knew that "the iron had entered into her soul" (I know no better expression), and he was revenged. He had ceased to love her, but revenge is sweet—to some.
Not to him. When he looked at her, he would have given his life that she might smile again, though she was no more to him what she had been. He turned, for fear of being seen, saying to himself,—
"Poor girl! Poor dear Adelaide! She must lie on the bed she has made. God help her!"
Haphazard was the first favourite—facile princeps. He was at two and a half to one. Bill Sykes, at three and a half, was a very dangerous horse. Then came Carnarvon, Lablache, Lick-pitcher, Ivanhoe, Ben Caunt, Bath-bun, Hamlet, Allfours, and Colonel Sibthorp. The last of these was at twenty to one. Ben Caunt was to make the running for Haphazard, so they said; and Colonel Sibthorp for Bill Sykes.
So he heard the men talking round Lady Welter's carriage. Hornby's voice was as loud as any one's, and a pleasant voice it was; but they none of them talked very low. Charles could hear every word.
"I am afraid Lady Welter will never forgive me," said Hornby, "but I have bet against the favourite."
"I beg your pardon," said Adelaide.
"I have bet against your horse, Lady Welter."
"My horse?" said Adelaide, coolly and scornfully. "My horses are all post-horses, hired for the day to bring me here. I hope none of them are engaged in the races, as I shall have to go home with a pair only, and then I shall be disgraced for ever."
"I mean Haphazard."
"Oh, that horse?" said Adelaide; "that is Lord Ascot's horse, not mine. I hope you may win. You ought to win something, oughtn't you? Welter has won a great deal from you, I believe."
The facts were the other way. But Hornby said no more to her. She was glad of this, though she liked him well enough, for she hoped that she had offended him by her insolent manner. But they were at cross-purposes.
Presently Lord Welter came swinging in among them; he looked terribly savage and wild, and Charles thought he had been drinking. Knowing what he was in this mood, and knowing also the mood Adelaide was in, he dreaded some scene. "But they cannot quarrel so soon," he thought.
"How d'ye do?" said Lord Welter to the knot of men round his wife's carriage. "Lady Welter, have your people got any champagne, or anything of that sort?"
"I suppose so; you had better ask them."
She had not forgotten what he had said to her that morning so brutally. She saw he was madly angry, and would have liked to make him commit himself before these men. She had fawned, and wheedled, and flattered for a month; but now she was Lady Welter, and he should feel it.
Lord Welter looked still more savage, but said nothing. A man brought him some wine; and, as he gave it to him, Adelaide said, as quietly as though she were telling him that there was some dust on his coat—
"You had better not take too much of it; you seem to have had enough already. Sir Robert Ferrers here is very taciturn in his cups, I am told; but you make such a terrible to-do when you are drunk."
They should feel her tongue, these fellows! They might come and dangle about her carriage-door, and joke to one another, and look on her beauty as if she were a doll; but they should feel her tongue; Charles's heart sank within him as he heard her. Only a month gone, and she desperate.
But of all the mischievous things done on that race-course that day—and they were many—the most mischievous and uncalled-for was Adelaide's attack upon Sir Robert Ferrers, who, though very young, was as sober, clever, and discreet a young man as any in the Guards, or in England. But Adelaide had heard a story about him. To wit, that, going to dinner at Greenwich with a number of friends, and having taken two glasses or so of wine at his dinner, he got it into his head that he was getting tipsy; and refused to speak another word all the evening for fear of committing himself.
The other men laughed at Ferrers. And Lord Welter chose to laugh too; he was determined that his wife should not make a fool of him. But now every one began to draw off and take their places for the race. Little Dick Ferrers, whose whole life was one long effort of good nature, stayed by Lady Welter, though horribly afraid of her, because he did not like to see her left alone. Charles forced himself into a front position against the rails, with his friend Mr. Sloane, and held on thereby, intensely interested. He was passionately fond of horse-racing; and he forgot everything, even his poor, kind old friend Lord Ascot, in scrutinising every horse as it came by from the Warren, and guessing which was to win.
Haphazard was the horse, there could be no doubt. A cheer ran all along the line, as he came walking majestically down, as though he knew he was the hero of the day. Bill Sykes and Carnarvon were as good as good could be; but Haphazard was better. Charles remembered Lady Ascot's tearful warning about his not being able to stay; but he laughed it to scorn. The horse had furnished so since then! Here he came, flying past them like a whirlwind, shaking the earth, and making men's ears tingle with the glorious music of his feet on the turf. Haphazard, ridden by Wells, must win! Hurrah for Wells!
As the horse came slowly past again, he looked up to see the calm stern face; but it was not there. There were Lord Ascot's colours, dark blue and white sash; but where was Wells? The jockey was a smooth-faced young man, with very white teeth, who kept grinning and touching his cap at every other word Lord Ascot said to him. Charles hurriedly borrowed Sloane's card, and read,
"Lord Ascot's Haphazard——J. Brooks."
Who, in the name of confusion, was J. Brooks? All of a sudden he remembered. It was one of Lord Ascot's own lads. It was the very lad that rode Haphazard on the day that Adelaide and he rode out to the Downs, at Ranford, to see the horse gallop. Lord Ascot must be mad.
"But Wells was to have ridden Haphazard, Mr. Sloane," said Charles.
"He wouldn't," said Sloane, and laughed sardonically. But there was no time for Charles to ask why he laughed, for the horses were off.
Those who saw the race were rather surprised that Ben Caunt had not showed more to the front at first to force the running; but there was not much time to think of such things. As they came round the corner, Haphazard, who was lying sixth, walked through his horses and laid himself alongside of Bill Sykes. A hundred yards from the post, Bill Sykes made a push, and drew a neck a-head; in a second or so more Haphazard had passed him, winning the Derby by a clear length; and poor Lord Ascot fell headlong down in a fit, like a dead man.
Little Dicky Ferrers, in the excitement of the race, had climbed into the rumble of Adelaide's carriage, peashooter and all; and, having cheered rather noisily as the favourite came in winner, he was beginning to wonder whether he hadn't made a fool of himself, and what Lady Welter would say when she found where he had got to, when Lord Welter broke through the crowd, and came up to his wife, looking like death.
"Get home, Adelaide! You see what has happened, and know what to do. Lady Welter, if I get hold of that boy Brooks, to-night, in a safe place, I'll murder him, by——!"
"I believe you will, Welter. Keep away from him, unless you are a madman. If you anger the boy it will all come out. Where is Lord Ascot?"
"Dead, they say, or dying. He is in a fit."
"I ought to go to him, Welter, in common decency."
"Go home, I tell you. Get the things you know of packed, and taken to one of the hotels at London Bridge. Any name will do. Be at home to-night, dressed, in a state of jubilation; and keep a couple of hundred pounds in the house. Here, you fellows! her ladyship's horses—look sharp!"
Poor little Dicky Ferrers had heard more than he intended; but Lord Welter, in his madness, had not noticed him. He didn't use his peashooter going home, and spoke very little. There was a party of all of them in Hornby's rooms that night, and Dicky was so dull at first, that his brother made some excuse to get him by himself, and say a few eager, affectionate words to him.
"Dick, my child, you have lost some money. How much? You shall have it to-morrow."
"Not half a halfpenny, Bob; but I was with Lady Welterjust after the race, and I heard more than I ought to have heard."
"You couldn't help it, I hope."
"I ought to have helped it; but it was so sudden, I couldn't help it. And now I can't ease my mind by telling anybody."
"I suppose it was some rascality of Welter's," said Sir Robert, laughing. "It don't much matter; only don't tell any one, you know." And then they went in again, and Dicky never told any one till every one knew.
For it came out soon that Lord Ascot had been madly betting, by commission, against his own horse, and that forty years' rents of his estates wouldn't set my lord on his legs again. With his usual irresolution, he had changed his policy—partly owing, I fear, to our dear old friend Lady Ascot's perpetual croaking about "Ramoneur blood," and its staying qualities. So, after betting such a sum on his own horse as gave the betting world confidence, and excusing himself by pleading his well-known poverty from going further, he had hedged, by commission; and, could his horse have lost, he would have won enough to have set matters right at Ranford. He dared not ask a great jockey to ride for him under such circumstances, and so he puffed one of his own lads to the world, and broke with Wells. The lad had sold him like a sheep. Meanwhile, thinking himself a man of honour, poor fool, he had raised every farthing possible on his estate to meet his engagements on the turf in case of failure—in case of his horse winning by some mischance, if such a thing could be. And so it came about that the men of the turf were all honourably paid, and he and his tradesmen were ruined. The estates were entailed; but for thirty years Ranford must be in the hands of strangers. Lord Welter, too, had raised money, and lost fearfully by the same speculation.
There are some men who are always in the right place when they are wanted—always ready to do good and kind actions—and who are generally found "to the fore" in times of trouble. Such a man was General Mainwaring. When Lord Ascot fell down in a fit, he was beside him, and, having seen him doing well, and having heard from him, as he recovered, the fearful extent of the disaster, he had posted across country to Ranford and told Lady Ascot.
She took it very quietly.
"Win or lose," she said, "it is all one to this unhappy house. Tell them to get out my horses, dear general, and let me go to my poor darling Ascot. You have heard nothing of Charles Ravenshoe, general?"
"Nothing, my dear lady."
Charles had brushed his sleeve in the crowd that day, and had longed to take the dear old brown hand in his again, but dared not. Poor Charles! If he had only done so!
So the general and Lady Ascot went off together, and nursed Lord Ascot; and Adelaide, pale as death, but beautiful as ever, was driven home through the dust and turmoil, clenching her hands impatiently together at every stoppage on the road.
There was a time, a time we have seen, when Lord Welter was a merry, humorous, thoughtless boy. A boy, one would have said, with as little real mischief in him as might be. He might have made a decent member of society, who knows? But to do him justice, he had had everything against him from his earliest childhood. He had never known what a mother was, or a sister. His earliest companions were grooms and gamekeepers; and his religious instruction was got mostly from his grandmother, whose old-fashioned Sunday-morning lectures and collect learnings, so rigidly pursued that he dreaded Sunday of all days in the week, were succeeded by cock-fighting in the Croft with his father in the afternoon, and lounging away the evening among the stable-boys. As Lord Saltire once said, in the former part of this story, "Ranford was what the young men of the day called an uncommon fast house."
Fast enough, in truth. "All downhill and no drag on." Welter soon defied his grandmother. For his father he cared nothing. Lord Ascot was so foolishly fond of the boy that he never contradicted him in anything, and used even to laugh when he was impudent to his grandmother, whom, to do Lord Ascot justice, he respected more than any living woman. Tutors were tried, of whom Welter, by a happy combination of obstinacy and recklessness, managed to vanquish three, in as many months. It was hopeless. Lord Ascot would not hear of his going to school. He was his only boy, his darling. He could not part with him; and, when Lady Ascot pressed the matter, he grew obstinate, as he could at times, and said he would not. The boy would do wellenough; he had been just like him at his age, and look at him now!
Lord Ascot was mistaken. He had not been quite like Lord Welter at his age. He had been a very quiet sort of boy indeed. Lord Ascot was a great stickler for blood in horses, and understood such things. I wonder he could not have seen the difference between the sweet, loving face of his mother, capable of violent, furious passion though it was, and that of his coarse, stupid, handsome, gipsy-looking wife, and judged accordingly. He had engrafted a new strain of blood on the old Staunton stock, and was to reap the consequences.
What was to become of Lord Welter was a great problem, still unsolved; when, one night, shortly before Charles paid his first visit to Ranford, vice Cuthbert, disapproved of, Lord Ascot came up, as his custom was, into his mother's dressing-room, to have half-an-hour's chat with her before she went to bed.
"I wonder, mother dear," he said, "whether I ought to ask old Saltire again, or not? He wouldn't come last time you know. If I thought he wouldn't come, I'd ask him."
"You must ask him," said Lady Ascot, brushing her grey hair, "and he will come."
"Verywell," said Lord Ascot. "It's a bore; but you must have some one to flirt with, I suppose."
Lady Ascot laughed. In fact, she had written before, and told him that hemustcome, for she wanted him; and come he did.
"Now, Maria," said Lord Saltire, on the first night, as soon as he and Lady Ascot were seated together on a quiet sofa, "what is it? Why have you brought me down to meet this mob of jockeys and gamekeepers? A fortnight here, and not a soul to speak to, but Mainwaring and yourself. After I was here last time, dear old Lady Hainault croaked out in a large crowd that some one smelt of the stable."
"Dear old soul," said Lady Ascot. "What a charming, delicate wit she has. You will have to come here again, though. Every year, mind."
"Kismet," said Lord Saltire. "But what is the matter?"
"What do you think of Ascot's boy?"
"Oh, Lord!" said Lord Saltire. "So I have been brought all this way to be consulted about a schoolboy. Well, I think he looks an atrocious young cub, as like his dear mamma as he can be. I always used to expect that she would call me a pretty gentleman, and want to tell my fortune."
Lady Ascot smiled:sheknew her man. She knew he would have died for her and hers.
"He is getting very troublesome," said Lady Ascot. "What would you reco——"
"Send him to Eton," said Lord Saltire.
"But he is very high-spirited, James, and——"
"Send him to Eton.Do you hear, Maria?"
"But Ascot won't let him go," said Lady Ascot.
"Oh, he won't, won't he?" said Lord Saltire. "Now, let us hear no more of the cub, but have our picquet in peace."
The next morning Lord Saltire had an interview with Lord Ascot, and two hours afterwards it was known that Lord Welter was to go to Eton at once.
And so, when Lord Welter met Charles at Twyford, he told him of it.
At Eton, he had rapidly found other boys brought up with the same tastes as himself, and with these he consorted. A rapid interchange of experiences went on among these young gentlemen; which ended in Lord Welter, at all events, being irreclaimably vicious.
Lord Welter had fallen in love with Charles, as boys do, and their friendship had lasted on, waning as it went, till they permanently met again at Oxford. There, though their intimacy was as close as ever, the old love died out, for a time, amidst riot and debauchery. Charles had some sort of a creed about women; Lord Welter had none. Charles drew a line at a certain point, low down it might be, which he never passed; Welter set no bounds anywhere. What Lord Hainault said of him at Tattersall's was true. One day, when they had been arguing on this point rather sharply, Charles said—
"If you mean what you say, you are not fit to come into a gentleman's house. But you don't mean it, old cock; so don't be an ass."
He did mean it, and Charles was right. Alas! that ever he should have come to Ravenshoe!
Lord Welter had lived so long in the house with Adelaide that he never thought of making love to her. They used to quarrel, like Benedict and Beatrice. What happened was her fault. She was worthless. Worthless. Let us have done with it. I can expand over Lord Saltire and Lady Ascot, and such good people, but I cannot over her, more than is necessary.
Two things Lord Welter was very fond of—brawling and dicing. He was an arrant bully, very strong, and perfect in the use of his fists, and of such courage and tenacity that, having once began a brawl, no one had ever made him leave it, save as an unqualified victor. This was getting well known now. Since he had leftOxford and had been living in London, he had been engaged in two or three personal encounters in the terribly fast society to which he had betaken himself, and men were getting afraid of him. Another thing was, that, drink as he would, he never played the worse for it. He was a lucky player. Sometimes, after winning money of a man, he would ask him home to have his revenge. That man generally went again and again to Lord Welter's house, in St. John's Wood, and did not find himself any the richer. It was the most beautiful little gambling den in London, and it was presided over by one of the most beautiful, witty, fascinating women ever seen. A woman with whom all the men fell in love; so staid, so respectable, and charmingly behaved. Lord Welter always used to call her Lady Welter; so they all called her Lady Welter too, and treated her as though she were.
But this Lady Welter was soon to be dethroned to make room for Adelaide. A day or two before they went off together, this poor woman got a note from Welter to tell her to prepare for a new mistress. It was no blow to her. He had prepared her for it for some time. There might have been tears, wild tears, in private; but what cared he for the tears of such an one? When Lord Welter and Adelaide came home, and Adelaide came with him into the hall, she advanced towards her, dressed as a waiting-woman, and said quietly,
"You are welcome home, madam."
It was Ellen, and Lord Welter was the delinquent, as you have guessed already. When she fled from Ravenshoe, she was flying from the anger of her supposed brother William; for he thought he knew all about it; and, when Charles Marston saw her passing round the cliff, she was making her weary way on foot towards Exeter to join him in London. After she was missed, William had written to Lord Welter, earnestly begging him to tell him if he had heard of her. And Welter had written back to him that he knew nothing, on his honour. Alas for Welter's honour, and William's folly in believing him!
Poor Ellen! Lord Welter had thought that she would have left the house, and had good reason for thinking so. But, when he got home, there she was. All her finery cast away, dressed plainly and quietly. And there she stayed, waiting on Adelaide, demure and quiet as a waiting-woman should be. Adelaide had never been to Ravenshoe, and did not know her. Lord Welter had calculated on her going; but she stayed on. Why?
You must bear with me, indeed you must, at such times as these. I touch as lightly as I can; but I have undertaken to tell a story, and I must tell it. These things are going on about us,and we try to ignore them, till they are thrust rudely upon us, as they are twenty times a year. No English story about young men could be complete without bringing in subjects which some may think best left alone. Let us comfort ourselves with one great, undeniable fact—the immense improvement in morals which has taken place in the last ten years. The very outcry which is now raised against such relations shows plainly one thing at least—that undeniable facts are being winked at no longer, and that some reform is coming. Every younger son who can command £200 a year ought to be allowed to marry in his own rank in life, whatever that may be. They will be uncomfortable, and have to save and push; and a very good thing for them. They won't lose caste. There are some things worse than mere discomfort. Let us look at bare facts, which no one dare deny. There is in the great world, and the upper middle-class world too, a crowd of cadets; younger sons, clerks, officers in the army, and so on; non-marrying men, as the slang goes, who are asked out to dine and dance with girls who are their equals in rank, and who have every opportunity of falling in love with them. And yet if one of this numerous crowd were to dare to fall in love with, and to propose to, one of these girls, he would be denied the house. It is the fathers and mothers who are to blame, to a great extent, for the very connexions they denounce so loudly. But yet the very outcry they are raising against these connexions is a hopeful sign.