A PIC-NIC AT ENGHIEN.A PIC-NIC AT ENGHIEN.
I had lost a round sum of money in that delightful place, where our ambassador was wont to refresh himself after his diplomatic labours and ceremonials.
"I know the place," Daker went on; "I know Chantilly well. It wakes up a curious dream of the long ago in my mind."
"And Enghien?"
"Comme ma poche." Daker knew his Enghien well—and Enghien was profoundly acquainted with Daker. Daker appeared to be a man not yet over his thirtieth year. He was fair, full-blooded, with a bright grey eye, a lithe shapely build, and distinguished in air and movement withal. There were no marks upon his face; his eyes were frank and direct; his speech was firm and of a cheery ring; and emotions seemed to come and go in him as in an unused nature. Yet his conversation, freeas it was, and wholly unembarrassed, cast out frequent hints at a copious history and an eventful one, in which he had acted a part. I concluded he was no common man, and that, until now, the world had not treated him over well; albeit he had just received ample compensation for the past in the girlish wife who had crept to his side, and who, the swiftest runner might have read, loved him with all her soul. We all pride ourselves on our skill in reading the characters of our fellow-creatures. A man will admit any dulness except that which closes the hearts of others to him. I was convinced that I had read the character of Daker before we touched the quay at Boulogne: he was a man of fine and delicate nature, whom the world had hit; who had been cheery under punishment; and who had at length got his rich reward in Mrs. Daker. I repeat this confession, and to my cost; for it is necessary as part explanation of what follows.
My conversation with Daker was broken by thecall of a sweet voice—"Herbert!" We were crossing the bar at the entrance of Boulogne harbour. The good ship rolled heavily, and Herbert was wanted! When the passengers crowded to the side, pressing and jostling to effect an early landing, and the fishwives were scrambling from the paddles to the deck, I came upon Daker and his wife once more. She glanced shyly and not very good-humouredly at me, and seemed to say, "It was you who diverted the attention of my Herbert from me so long."
"Good morning," Daker said, meaning that there was an end of our fortuitous intercourse, and that he should be just as chatty and familiar with any man who might happen to be in the same carriage with him between Boulogne and Paris. I watched him hand his wife into a basket phaeton, smooth her dress, arrange her little parcels, satisfy her as to her dressing-case, and then seat himself triumphantly at her side, and call gaily to the saturnine Boulounais upon the box, "Allez!" I confess that a pangof jealousy shot through me. It has been observed by La Rochefoucauld that it is astonishing how cheerfully we bear the ills of others; he might well have added that, on the other hand, it is remarkable how we fret over the happiness of our neighbours. I envied Daker when I saw him drive away to the station with the gentle girl at his side; I knew that she was nestling against him, and half her illness was only an excuse to get nearer to his heart. Why should I envy him? Could I have seen through his face into his heart at that moment I should have thanked God, who made me of simpler mould—a lonely, but an honourable man.
We were on our way to Paris in due time. At Amiens, where we enjoyed the usual twenty minutes' rest, Daker offered me a light. I saw him making his way to the carriage in which his wife sat, with a basket of pears and somecaramels. The bell rang, and we all hurried to our seats. I remarked that, at the point of starting, there was an unusual stir and noise on the platform.Messieurs lesvoyageurswere not complete; somebody was missing from one of the carriages. The station-master and the guard kept up a brisk and angry conversation, which ended in an imperious wave of the hand to the engine-driver.
The guard and the commissioner (who travels in the interest of the general vagrant public from London to Paris, making himself generally useful by the way) shrugged their shoulders and got to their places, and we went forward to Creil. Here the carriages were all searched carefully. A lady was inquiring for the gentleman. My French companions laughed, and answered in their native light manner; and again we wereen routefor Paris. Past Chantilly and Enghien and St. Denis we flew, to where the low line of the fortifications warned us to dust ourselves, fold our newspapers, roll up our rugs, and tell one another that which was obvious to all—that we were in the centre of civilization once more.
It was dark; and I was hungry, and out of humour, and impatient. I had fallen in with unsympathetic companions. That half-hour in the waiting-room, while the porters are arranging the luggage for examination, is trying to most tempers. I am usually free from it; but on this occasion I had some luggage belonging to a friend to look after. I was waiting sulkily.
Presently the guard, the travelling commissioner, and half-a-dozen more in official costume, appeared, surrounding a lady, who was in deep distress. Had I seen a gentleman—fair, &c., &c.? I turned and beheld Mrs. Daker. She darted at me, and I can never forget the look which accompanied the question—
"You were with my husband on the boat. Where is he?"
He was not among the passengers who reached Paris. We telegraphed back to Creil, and to Amiens. No English traveller, who had missed his train, made answer. We questioned all the passengers in the waiting-room; one had seen theblondeEnglishman buying pears at Amiens; this was all we could hear. I say "we," because Mrs.
EXCURSIONISTS AND EMIGRANTS.EXCURSIONISTS & EMIGRANTS.Sketches in Paris
Daker at once fastened upon me: she implored my advice; she narrated all that had passed between her husband and herself while the train was waiting at Amiens. He had begged her not to stir—kind fellow that he was—he had insisted upon fetching fruit and sweetmeats for her. I calmed her fears, for they were exaggerated beyond all reason. He would follow in the next train; I knew what Frenchmen were, and they would not remark a single traveller, unless he had some strong peculiarity in his appearance, and her husband had a travelled air which was cosmopolitan. He spoke French like a Frenchman, she told me; and he had proved, on the boat, that he was familiar with its idioms. I begged her to get her luggage, go to her hotel, and leave me to watch and search. What hotel were they to use? She knew nothing about it. Her husband hadn't told her, for she was an utter stranger to Paris. I recommended the Windsor (I thought it prudent not to say Mrs. Rowe's); and she was a child in my hands. She looked evenprettier in her distress than when her happy eyes were beaming, as I first caught sight of them, upon Herbert Daker. The tears trickled down her cheek; the little white hands shook like flower bells in the wind. While the luggage was being searched (fortunately she had the ticket in her reticule), I stood by and helped her.
"But surely, madam, this is not all!" I remarked, when her two boxes had been lightly searched. She caught my meaning. Where was her husband's portmanteau?
"Mr. Baker's portmanteau was left behind at Boulogne—there was some mistake; I don't know what exactly. I——"
At this moment she marked an expression of anxiety in my face. She gave a sharp scream, that vibrated through the gloomy hall and startled the bystanders. "Was madame ill? Would she have someeau sucrée?" She had fainted! and her head lay upon my arm!
Unhappy little head, why stir again?
"You must come, my dear fellow. You know, when I promise you a pleasant evening I don't disappoint you. You'll meet everybody. You dine with me.Sole Joinville, at Philippe's—best to be had, I think—and a bird. In the cool, the Madrid for our coffee, and so gently back. I'll drop you at your door—leave you for an hour to paint the lily, and then fetch and take you. You shall not say me nay."
I protested a little, but I was won. I had a couple of days to spend in Paris, and, like a man on the wing, had no particular engagements.
We met, my host and I, at theNapolitain. He knew everybody, and was everybody's favourite.Cosmo Bertram, once guardsman, then fashionable saunterer wherever society was gayest, quietly extravagant and sentimentally dissipated, had, after much flitting about the sunny centres of the Continent, settled down to Paris and a happy place in the English society that has agglomerated in the west of Napoleon's capital. Fortunately for his "little peace of mind"—as he described a shrewd, worldly head—he was put down by the dowagers, after some sharp discussions of his antecedents, as "no match." There was the orphan daughter of a Baronet who had some hundred and twenty a year, and tastes which she hoped one day to satisfy by annexing a creature wearing a hat, and a pocket with ten times that sum. She had thought for a moment of Cosmo Bertram when she had enjoyed her first half-hour of his amusing rattle; but she had been quickly undeceived—Bertram could not have added a chicken to her broth, a pair of gloves to her toilette; so she shut up the thing she called a heart, for lack of some fitter name, and cruisedagain through the ominous gold rings of her glasses round thesalons, and hoped the growing taste for travel might send her some one for annexation at last.
"We're jigging on pretty much as usual," Bertram said at Philippe's. "Plenty of scandal and plenty of reason for it. The demand creates the supply—is that sound political economy?"
"I am surprised that political economy, together with an intimate acquaintance with hydrostatics, are not exacted in these mad examination days from a queen's messenger; but I am not bound not to be a fool in political economy, so I elect to be one."
"Chablis?"
"Ay; and about ice?"
"My dear Q. M., when you have had a headache, has it ever fallen to your lot to be in the company of a pretty woman?"
"Else had I been one of the most neglected of men."
"Well, she has fetched the Eau-de-Cologne, bathed your manly brow, and then blown her balmy breath over your temples. That sweet coolness, my dear fellow, is my idea of the proper temperature for Chablis."
"It's a great bit of luck to pounce upon you, Bertram, when a man has only a few hours to spend in Paris, after a year or two's absence. Nearly upon two years have passed since I was here. Yes, November, '62—now August, '64."
"In that time, my dear Q. M., reputations have been made and lost by the hundred. I have had a score of eternal friendships. You can run through the matrimonial gauntlet, from courtship to the Divorce Court, in that time. We used to grieve for years: now we weep as we travel; shed tears, as we cast grain, by machinery. Two years! Why, I have passed through half-a-dozen worlds. My bosom friend of '62 wouldn't remember me if I met him to-morrow. I met old Baron Desordres, who has made such a brilliantfiascofor everybodyexcept himself, yesterday; I knew him in '62 with poor little Bartle, who lent him a couple of thousands. Bartle died last month. In '62 Desordres and Bartle were inseparable. I said to the Baron yesterday, 'You know poor little Bartle is dead.' The Baron, picking his teeth, murmured, turning over the leaves of his memory, 'Bartel! Bartel!I remember—un petit gros, vrai?' and the leaves of the Baron's memory were turned back, and Bartle was as much forgotten in five minutes as the burnt end of a cigarette. I daresay his sisters are gone as governesses for want of the thousands the Baron ate. Two years! Two epochs!"
"I suppose so. While the light burns, and the summer is on, the moths come out. Tragedy, comedy, and farce elbow each other through the rooms. I have seen very much myself, for bird of passage. I took part in a strange incident when I passed through last time."
"Tell your story, and drink your Roederer, my dear Q. M."
"Story! I want to get at the story. I travelled with a man and his wife from Folkestone to Paris. On the boat he was the most attentive of husbands; at the terminus he had disappeared. Poor woman in tears; fell into my arms, sir, by Jove!"
"No story!" cried Bertram, winking at the floating air-beads in his glass. "No story! my good, simple Q.M. Egad! what would you have? Pray go on."
"Go on! I've finished. I was off in the afternoon by the Marseilles mail. Of course, I did my utmost to find the husband. She went to the Windsor; I thought it would be quiet for her. I went to the police, paid to have inquiries kept up in all the hotels; and lastly, put her in communication with a good business man—Moffum, you know; and left her, a wreck of one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen."
"What kind of fellow was the husband? You got his name, of course?"
"Daker—Herbert Daker. Man of good family.A most agreeable, taking, travelled companion; light and bright as——"
"The light-hearted Janus of Lamb," Bertram interrupted, his words dancing lightly as the beads in his glass.
The association of Daker with Wainwright struck me sharply. For how genial and accomplished a man was the criminal! a stranger conglomeration of graces and sins never dwelt within one human breast. I was started on wild speculations.
"I've set you dreaming. You found no clue to a history?"
"None. She had been married three months to Daker. She was a poor girl left alone, with a few hundreds, I apprehend. She would not say much. A runaway match, I concluded. Not a word about her family. When I left Paris, after dinner, he had made no sign. She promised to write to me to Constantinople. I gave her my address in town. I told her Arthur's here would reach me. But not a word, my dear boy. That woman had the soul oftruth in voice and look, or I never read Eve's face yet."
"Ha! ha!" Bertram laughed. "I wish I had not got beyond the risk of being snared by the un-gloving of a hand. You only pass through, I live in Paris."
"Paris or London, a heart may be read, if you will only take the trouble. I shall never hear, in all human probability, what has become of Mrs. Daker, or her husband; she may be an intrigante, and he a card-sharper now; all I know, and will swear, is that she loved that man to distraction then, and it was a girl in love."
"And he?"
Bertram's suspicions seemed to be fixed on Daker, whom he had never seen; although I had described his eminently prepossessing qualities.
"I can't understand why you should suspect Daker of villany, as I see you do, Bertram."
"I tell you he was a most accomplished, prepossessing villain, my dear Q.M. Your upperclass villains are always prepossessing. Manners are as necessary to them as a small hand to a pickpocket."
"Sharp, but unfair—only partly true, like all sweeping generalizations. I think, as I hope, that the wife found the husband, and that they are nestling in some Italian retreat."
"And never had the grace to write you a word! No, no, you say they had manners. That, at any rate, then, is not the solution of the mystery."
Bertram was right here. Then what had become of Mrs. Daker? Daker, if alive, was a scoundrel, and one who had contrived to take care of himself. But that sweet country face! Here was a heart that might break, but would never harden.
"Mystery it must and will remain, I suppose."
"One of many," was Bertram's gay reply. "How they overload these matches with sulphur!"
He was lighting his cigar. His phaeton was at the door. A globule of Chartreuse; a compliment for thechef, a bow to thedame de comptoir, andwe were on our way to the Bois, at a brisk trot, for the great world had cleared off to act tragedy and comedy by the ocean shore, or the invalid's well, or the gambler's green baize.
Bertram—one of that great and flourishing class of whom Scandal says "she doesn't know how they do it, or who pays for it"—albeit a bad match, even for Miss Tayleure, was, as I have said, in good English and French society, and drove his phaeton. He was saluted on his way along the Champs Elysées and by the lake, by many, and by some ladies who were still unaccountably lingering in Paris. A superb little Victoria passed. Bertram raised his hat.
"An Irish girl," he said, "of superb beauty."
At the Madrid we met a few people we knew; and, driving home, Bertram saluted Miss Tayleure, who was crawling round the lake with her twin sister, and was provoked to be recognised by a man of fashion in a hack vehicle in the month of August.
BOIS DE BOULOGNE.BOIS DE BOULOGNE.
"Charming evening they're having," said Bertram: "taking out their watches every two minutes to be quite sure they shall get back within the hour and a half which they have made up their minds to afford. Beastly position!"
"What! living for appearances?"
"Just so; with women especially. Their dodges are extraordinary. Tayleure would cheapen a penny loaf, and run down the price of a box of lucifer matches. There's a chance for you! She would be an economical wife; but then, my dear fellow, she would spend all the savings on herself. Her virtue is like Gibraltar!"
"And would be safe as unintrenched tableland, I should think."
"Hang it!" Bertram handsomely interposed, "let us drop poor Tayleure. She believes that her hour of happiness has to be rung in yet; and she is always craning out of the window to catch the first silver echoes of the bells. The old gentlewoman is happy."
"Suppose you tell me something about your Irish beauty," I suggested.
"Quite a different story, my good Q.M. Wait till I get clear of this clumsy fellow ahead. So, so, gently. Now, Miss Trefoil; the Trefoil is a girl whose success I can understand perfectly. To begin with—the girl is educated. In the second place, she is, beyond all dispute, a beautiful woman. There is not another pair of violet eyes in all Paris—I mean in the season—to be matched with hers. Milk and roses—nothing more—for complexion: andnopaint; which makes her light sisters—accomplished professors of the art ofmaquillage—hate her. A foot!" Bertram kissed the tip of his glove, by way of description. "A voice that seems to make the air rich about her."
"Gently, Bertram. We must be careful how we approach your queen, I see."
"Not a bit of it. I am telling you just what you would hear in any of the clubs. She has a liberal nature, my boy, and loves nobody, that I canfind, in particular. What bewitches me in talking to her is a sort of serious background. I hate a woman all surface as I hate a flat house. The Trefoil—queer name, isn't it?—can put a tremor in her voice suddenly. The Trefoil has memories—a fact: something which she doesn't give to the world, generous as she is. It is the shade to her abounding and sparkling passages of light. Only her deep art, I dare say; but devilish pleasant and refreshing when you get tired of laughing—gives a little repose to facial muscles. The Trefoil has decidedly made a sensation. At the races she was as popular as the winner. She must have got home with a chariot full of money. Of course, when she bet, she won—or she didn't pay. A pot of money is to be made on that system: and the women, bless 'em, how kindly they've taken to it!"
This kind of improving discourse employed us to my gate. Bertram dropped me to return for "the painted lily" in an hour.
I am no squeamish man, or I should have passed a wretched life. The man who is perpetually travelling must bear with him a pliant nature that will adapt itself to any society, to various codes of morals, habits of thought, rules of conduct, and varieties of temperament. I can make myself at home in most places, but least in those regions which the progress of civilization, or the progress of something, has established in every capital of Europe, and to the description of which the younger Dumas has devoted his genius. The atmosphere of thedemi-mondenever delighted me. I see why it charms; I guess why it has become the potent rival of good society; the reason why men of genius, scholars, statesmen, princes, and all the great of the earth take pleasure in it, is not far to seek; silly women at home are to blame in great part. This new state of the body social is very much to be regretted; but I am not yet of those who think that good, decent society—the converse of honourable men with honourable women—is come orcoming to an end. I am of the old-fashioned, who have always been better pleased and more diverted with the society of ladies than with that of the free graces who allow smoke and indulge in it, and who have wit but lack wisdom. I was not in high glee at the prospect of accompanying Cosmo Bertram to his free dancing party.
They are all very much alike. The fifteen sous basket, to use Dumas' fine illustration, in Paris, is very like the Vienna, the Berlin, or the London basket. The ladies are beautiful, exquisitely dressed, vivacious, and, early in the evening, well-mannered. At the outset you might think yourself at your embassy; at the close you catch yourself hoping you will get away safely. Shrill voices pipe in corners of the room. "On sautera!" People are jumping with a vengeance. The paint is disturbed upon your partner's face. Pretty lips speak ugly words.Honi soit qui mal y pense;but then the gentleman is between two and three wines, and the lady is rallying him because he has senseenough left to he a little modest. A couple sprawl in a waltz. A gentleman roars a toast. The hostess prays for less noise. An altercation breaks out in the antechamber. Two ladies exchange slaps on the face, and you thank madame for a charming evening.
The next morning you are besieged, at your club, for news about Aspasia's reception. She did the honoursen souveraine; but it is really a pity she will not be less attentive to the champagne. Everything would have gone off splendidly if that littlediablesseTiti had not revived her feud with Fanchette. You are not surprised to hear that Aspasia's goods were seized this morning. The duke must have had more than enough of it by this time, and has, of course, discovered that he has been the laughing-stock of his friends for a long time past. Over the absinthe tripping commentary Aspasia sinks from the Chasusée d'Antin to the porter's lodge. A littlecrévétaps his teeth with the end of his cane, blinks his tired, wicked eyes, like amonkey in the sun, through hispince-nez, and opines, with a sharp relish, that Aspasia is destined to sweep her five stories—well.
Pah! What kind of discourse is all this for born and bred gentlemen to hold in these days, when the portals of noble knowledge lie wide open, and every man may grace his humanity with some special wisdom of his own!
Bertram, a ribbon in his buttonhole, and arrayed to justify his fame as one of the best-dressed men in Paris, came in haste for me.
"We are late, my dear Q.M. This is not carnival time, remember. We jump early."
The rooms were—but I cannot be at the pains of describing them. The reader knows what Sévres and Aubusson, St. Gobain, Barbédienne, Fourdinois, Jeanseline, Tahan, and the rest, can do for a first floor within a stone's throw of the Boulevard des Italiens. The fashion in all its most striking aspects is here. The presents lie thick as autumn leaves. The bonne says you might fill aportmanteau with madame's fans. Bertram is recognised by a dozen ladies at once. The lady of the house receives me with the lowest curtsey. No ambassadress could be moregracieuse. The toilettes are amazing. It is early, after all Bertram's impatience. The state is that of a duchesse for the present. Bertram leaves me and is lost in the crowd. The conversation is measured and orderly. The dancing begins, and I figure in the quadrille of honour. I am giving my partner—a dark-eyed, vivacious lady—an ice, when I am tapped upon the shoulder by Cosmo Bertram. Bertram has a lady on his arm. He turns to her, saying—
"Permit me to present my friend to you, Madame Trefoil——"
"What! Mrs. Daker!" I cried.
Mrs. Daker's still sweet eyes fell upon me; and she shook my hand; and by her commanding calmness smothered my astonishment, so that the bystanders should not see it.
Later in the evening she said—passing me in the crowd—"Come and see me."
I did not—I could not—next morning, tell Lucy nor Mrs. Rowe.
I had an unfortunate friend at Boulogne in the year 1865—then and many years before. He lived on the ramparts in the upper town; had put on that shabby military air, capped with a navalcouvre-chef(to use a Paris street word that is expressive, as street words often are), which distinguishes the British inhabitant of Boulogne-sur-mer; and was the companion of a group of majors and skippers, sprinkled with commercial men of erratic book-keeping tendencies. He had lost tone. He took me to his club; nothing more than a taproom, reserved to himself and men with whom he would not have exchanged a cigar light in London. The jokes were bad and flat. A laid-up captain ofan old London boat—sad old rascal was he!—led the conversation. Who was drunk last night? How did the Major get the key into the lock? Who paid for Todger's last go? "My word," said I, to my friend, who had liquored himself out of one of the snuggest civil berths I know, "how you can spend your time with those blackguards, surpasses my comprehension." They amused him, he said. He must drink with them, or play whist with another set, whose cards—he emphatically added, giving me to understand much thereby—he did not like. It was only for a short time, and he would be quit of them. This was his day dream. My friend was always on the point of getting rid of Boulogne; everything was just settled; and so, buoyed with a hope that never staled, death caught him one summer's afternoon, in the Rue Siblequin, and it was the bibulous sea captain and the very shady major who shambled after him, when he was borne through those prettyPetits Arbresto the English section of the cemetery. Wrecks of manyhappy families lie around him in that narrow field of rest; and passing through on my state errands, I have thought once or twice, what sermons indeed are there not in the headstones of Boulogne cemetery.
I was with my poor friend in the December of 1865. I was on way home to pass a cheery Christmas with my own people—a luxury which was not often reserved for me—and he had persuaded me to give him a couple of days. It would have been hard to refuse Hanger, who had been gazing across Channel so many weary months, seeing friends off whither he might not follow; and wondering when he should trip down the ladder, and bustle with the steward in the cabin, and ask the sailors whether we shall have a fine passage. To see men and women and children crowding home to their English Christmas from every corner of Europe, and to be left behind to eat plum-pudding in a back parlour of an imitation British tavern, with an obsolete skipper, and a ruined military man, whose familyblushed whenever his name was mentioned, was trying. Hanger protested he had no sentiment about Christmas, but he nearly wrung my hand off when he took leave of me.
It was while we were sauntering along the port, pushing hard against a blustering northerly wind, and I was trying to get at the truth about Hanger's affairs, advising him at every turn to grasp the bull by the horns, adopt strong measures, look his creditors full in the face—the common counsel people give their friends, but so seldom apply in their own instance—that we were accosted by a man who had just landed from the Folkestone boat. He wanted a place—yes, a cheap place—where they spoke English and gave English fare. Hanger hastened to refer him to his own British tavern, and, turning to me, said, "Must give Cross a good turn—a useful fellow in an emergency."
I returned with Hanger to the tavern, much against my will; but he insisted I should not give myself airs, but consent to be his guest to theextent of some bitter ale. Cross's new client was before a joint of cold beef, on the merits of which, combined with pickled onions, pickled by the identical hands of Mrs. Cross, Cross could not be prevailed upon to be quiet.
"Not a bad bit of beef," said the stranger, helping himself to a prodigious slice. "Another pint of beer."
Cross carried off the tankard, and returned, still muttering—"Not bad beef, I should think not—nor bad ale neither. Had the beef over from the old country."
The stranger brought his fist with tremendous force upon the table, and roared—"That's right, landlord; that's it; stick to that."
Cross, thus encouraged, would have treated the company to a copious dissertation on the merits of British fare, had not the company chorused him down with—"Now Cross is off! Cross on beef! Cross on beer!"
In a furious passion Cross left the room, rowingthat he would be even with "the captain" before the day was over. Hanger considered himself bound to ask the stranger whether he was satisfied with his recommendation.
"Couldn't be better, thankee," the stranger answered; "but the landlord doesn't seem to know much about the place. New comer, I suppose?"
"Was forty years ago," the old captain said, looking round for a laugh; "but he doesn't go out of the street once a month."
"I asked him where Marquise was, and be hanged if he could tell me. I want to know particularly."
The major glanced at the captain, and the captain at a third companion. Was somebody wanted? Who was hiding at Marquise?
"Thought every fool knew that," the captain said, in the belief that he had made a palpable hit.
"Every fool who lives in these parts, leastwise," the stranger retorted. "Perhaps you'll direct me?'
"Now, look you here, sir," the captain wasproceeding, leisurely emphasizing each word with a puff of tobacco smoke.
But the stranger would not be patient. He changed his tone, and answered, fiercely—
"I'm in no mind for fun or chaff. I've got d——d serious business on hand; and if you can tell me how to get to Marquise, tell me straight off, and ha' done with it—and I shall be obliged to you." With this he finished his second tankard of ale.
Hanger, feeling some responsibility about the man he had introduced, approached him with marked urbanity, and offered his services—
"I know Marquise and Wimille."
"Wimille! that's it!" the stranger cried. "Right you are. That's my direction. This is business. Yes, between Marquise and Wimille."
"Precisely," Hanger continued, as we proceeded towards the door.
I heard the major growl between his teeth in our rear—"Hanger's got him well in tow."
I should have been glad to show the man his way, and leave him to follow it; but Hanger, who could not resist an adventure, drew me aside and said—"We may as well drive to Marquise as anywhere else. We shall be back easily for thetable d'hôte." The expedition was not to my taste; but I yielded. The stranger was glad of our company, for the reason, which he bluntly explained, that we might be of some use to him; for the place was not exactly at Marquise nor at Wimille. We hired a carriage, and were soon clattering along the Calais road, muffled to our noses to face the icy wind.
The stranger soon communicated his name, saying, "My name is Reuben Sharp, and I don't care who knows it. Ask who Reuben Sharp is at Maidstone: they'll tell you."
Reuben Sharp was a respectable farmer—it was not necessary for him to tell us that. He was a man something over fifty: sharp eyes, round head, ruddy face, short hair flaked with white, which hematted over his forehead at intervals with a flaming bandanna; a voice built to call across a field or two; limbs equal to any country work or sport. In short, an individual as peculiar to England as her chalk cliffs. When he found that we knew something—and more than something—of the hunting-field, and that I knew his country, including Squire Lufton, to say nothing of the Lion at Farningham (one of the sweetest and most charming hostelries in all England), he took me to his heart, and told me his mission and his grief.
"I don't know how I shall meet him," Reuben Sharp said; "I'm not quite certain about myself. The man I'm going to see—this Matthew Glendore—has done me and mine a bitter wrong. The villain brought dishonour on my family. I knew he was in difficulties when he came into our parts, and took two rooms in Mother Gaselee's cottage. But he was a gentleman, every inch of it, in appearance. A d—d good shot; rode well; and—you know what fools girls are!"
I could only listen: any question might prove a most indiscreet one. Hanger was not quite so sensitive. "Fools!" he cried—"they are answerable for more mischief in the world than all the men and children, and the rest of the animal creation put together."
"And yet no man's worth a woman's little finger, if you know what I mean," Reuben Sharp went on, struggling manfully to get clear expression for the tumult of painful feeling that was in him. "They don't know what the world is; you cannot make 'em understand. The best fall into the hands of the worst men. She was the best, and he was the worst: the best, that she was. And I sent him to her, where she was living like an honest woman, and learning to be a lady, in London."
"And who is this Matthew Glendore, whom you are going to see?"
"The worst of men—the basest; and he's on his death-bed! and I'm to forgive him! I!
"Where is she? where is she, Glendore? for I know you through your disguise."
We stared at the farmer while he raved, lit his cigar, and then, in the torrent of his passion, let it out again. As we dipped to the hollow in which Wimille lay, passing carts laden with iron ore, Sharp became more excited.
"We cannot be far off now. He's lying at one of the iron-masters' houses, half a mile beyond this Wimille. Let's stop: I must have some brandy-and-water."
Hanger joyfully fell in with this proposition, vowing that he was frozen, and really could not stand the cold without, unless he had something warm within, any longer. We alighted at the village cabaret, and drew near the sweet-smelling wood fire, from which the buxom landlady drove two old men for our convenience. I protested they should not be disturbed; but they went off shivering, as they begged us to do them the honour of taking up their post in the chimney-corner.
We threw our coats off, and the grog was brought. The woman produced a little carafon of brandy.
"Tell her to bring the bottle," Sharp shouted, impatiently. "Does she take us to be school girls? Let the water be boiling. Ask her—Does she know anything of this Matthew Glendore?"
The farmer mixed himself a stiff glass of brandy-and-water, while he watched Hanger questioning the landlady with many bows and smiles.
"Plenty of palavering," Sharp muttered; then shouted—"Does she know the scoundrel?"
"One minute, my friend," Hanger mildly observed, meaning to convey to Sharp that he was asking a favour of gentlemen, not roaring his order to slaves. "Permit me to get the good woman's answers. Yes; she knows Monsieur Glendore."
"Mounseer Glendore! She knows no good of him."
"On the contrary," mildly pursued Hanger, sipping his grog, and nicely balancing it with sugarto his taste—"on the contrary, my good sir, she says he is a brave fellow—what she calls abrave garçon."
"Doesn't know him then, Mounseer Glendore! I wonder how many disguises he has worn in his life—how many women he has trapped and ruined! Ask her how long he has been here?"
The landlady answered—"Two years about the middle of next month."
"And he has never left this since?" Sharp went on, mixing himself by this time a second glass of brandy-and-water.
The landlady had never been a day without seeing him. He came to play his game of dominoes in the evening frequently. The dominoes exasperated the farmer. He would as soon see a man with crochet needles.
"D—n him!" Sharp shouted; "just like him."
I now ventured to interfere. Reuben Sharp was becoming violent with passion inflamed by brandy. The landlady was certain poor Monsieur Glendorewould never rise from his bed again. I said to Sharp—"Whatever the wrong may be this man has done you, Mr. Sharp, pray remember he is dying. He is passing beyond your judgment."
"Is he? Passing from my grip, is he? No—no—Herbert Daker."
Sharp had sprung from his chair, and was shaking his fist in the air.
"Daker! Herbert Daker!" I seized Reuben Sharp by the shoulder, and shook him violently. "What do you know about Herbert Daker?"
Sharp turned upon me a face shattered with rage, and hissed at me. "What do I know about him? What doyouabout him? Are you his friend?"
"I am not: never will, nor can be," was my reply. Sharp wrung my hand till it felt bloodless. "Herbert Daker is Matthew Glendore—Mounseer Glendore. When did you meet him?"
"On the Boulogne steamer, about three years ago, when he was crossing with his wife."
"Then!" Sharp exclaimed, and again he took a draught of brandy-and-water.
At this moment Hanger, who had been talking with the landlady, joined us, and whispered—"Be calm, gentlemen; this is a time for calmness. Glendore is at hand—in a little cottage on Monsieur Guibert's works. Madame says if we wish to see him alive, we had better lose no time. The clergyman from Boulogne arrived about an hour ago, and is with him now. His wife!—--"
"His wife!" Sharp was now a pitiable spectacle. He finished his glass, and caught Hanger by the collar of his coat—staring into his face to get at all the truth. "Glendore's wife!"
Hanger was as cool as man could be. He disengaged himself deliberately from the farmer's grip, put the table between them, and went smoothly on with the further observation he had to make!
"I repeat, according to the landlady, whose word we have no reason to doubt, his wife is with him—and his mother!"
Sharp struck the table and roared that it was impossible. I stood in hopeless bewilderment.
"Would it be decent to intrude at such a moment?"
"Decent!" Sharp was frantically endeavouring to button up his coat.
"D—n it, decent! Which is the way? My girl—my poor girl!"
"Show him," I contrived to say to Hanger, and he took the landlady's directions, while I passed my arm through Reuben Sharp's. We stumbled and blundered along in Hanger's footsteps, round muddy corners, past heaps of yellow ore, Sharp muttering and cursing and gesticulating by the way. We came suddenly to a halt at the little green door of a four-roomed cottage.
"Knock! knock!" Sharp shouted, pressing with his whole weight against the door. "Let me see her!—the villain!—Mounseer Glendore!—No, no, Herbert Daker!"
The power of observation is at its quickest inmoments of intense excitement. I remember looking with the utmost calmness at Sharp's face and figure, as he stood gasping before the door of Herbert Daker's lodging. It was the head of a satyr in anger.
"Daker—Herbert Daker!" Sharp cried.
The door was suddenly thrown open, and an English clergyman, unruffled and full of dignity, stood in the entrance. Sharp was a bold, untutored man; but he dared not force his way past the priest.
"Quiet, gentlemen—be quiet. Step in—but quiet—quiet."
We were in the chamber of Matthew Glendore in a moment. A lady rose from the bedside. Humble, and yet stately, a white face with red and swollen eyelids, eyes with command in them. We were uncovered, and in an instant wholly subdued.
"My child—my girl!" Reuben Sharp moaned.
The clergyman approached him, and laid his hand upon him.
"Whom do you want?"
"Mrs. Daker—my—"
The pale lady, full of grief, advanced a step, and looking full in the face of Reuben Sharp, said, "I, sir, am Mrs. Daker."
I had never seen that lady before.
"You!" Sharp shouted, shaking with rage.
But the minister firmly laid his hand upon him now, saying, "Hush! in the chamber of death! His mother is at his bedside; spare her."
At this, a little figure with a ghastly face rose from the farther side of the bed.
"Mrs. Rowe!" I cried.
She had not the power left to scream; and her head fell heavily upon the pillow of the dying man.
"Enough, enough!" the clergyman said with authority—closing the door of the chamber wherein Herbert Daker, the "Mr. Charles" of the Rue Millevoye, lay dead!
Cosmo Bertram was at a very low ebb. No horse. Had moved off to Batignolles. Had not been asked to the Embassy for a twelvemonth. When he ventured into the Tuileries gardens in the afternoon, it somehow happened that the backs of the ladies' chairs were mostly turned towards him. He was still dapper in appearance; but a close observer could see a difference. Management was perceptible in his dress. He had no watch; but the diamond remained on his finger—for the present; and yet society had nothing seriously compromising to say against him. It was rumoured that he had seen the interior of Clichy twice. So had Sir Ronald, whowas now the darling of the Faubourg; but then, note the difference. Sir Ronald had re-issued with plenty of money—or credit, which to society is the same thing; while poor Bertram had stolen down the hill by back streets to Batignolles, where he had found a cheap nest, and whence he trudged to his old haunts with a foolish notion that people would believe his story about a flying visit to England, and accept his translation to Batignolles as a sanitary precaution strongly recommended by his physician. If society be not yet civilized enough to imitate the savages, who kill the old members of the community, it has studied the philosophy of the storks in Jutland, who get rid of their ailing, feeble brother storks, at the fall of the year. Bertram was a bird to be pecked to pieces, and driven away from the prosperous community, being no longer prosperous.
First among the sharp peckers was Miss Tayleure, who always had her suspicions of Captain Bertram, although she was too good-natured to say anything.The seasons had circled three or four times since she had had the honour of being introduced to the gentleman, and yet the lady was waiting to see what the improved facilities for travel might bring her in the matrimonial line. She had, her dearest friends said, almost made up her mind to marry into commerce.
"Poor Tayleure!" one of the attachés said, at the Café Anglais, over his Marennes oysters, after the opera; "doomed to pig-iron, I'm afraid. Must do it. Can't carry on much longer. Another skein of false hair this season, by Jove."
In a society so charmingly constituted, the blows are dealt with an impartial hand; and it is so mercifully arranged, that he who is doubling his fist seldom feels the blow that is falling upon his own back. It was a belief which consoled the poor Baronet's orphan through her dreary time at the boarding-house—that, at least, she was free from damaging comment. Her noble head was many inches out of water; the conviction gave her superbconfidence when she had to pass an opinion on her neighbour.
Two old friends of Cosmo Bertram are lounging in the garden of the Imperial Club.
"Hasn't old Tayleure got her knife into Bertram! Poor dear boy. It's all up with him. Great pity. Was a capital fellow."
"Don't you know the secret? The old girl had designs on Bertram when he first turned up; and the Daker affair cast her plot to the winds. Mrs. Daker, you remember, was at old Tayleure's place—Rue d'Angoulême!"
"A pretty business that was. But who the deuce was Daker?"
"Bad egg."
The threads of this story lay in a tangle—in Paris, in Boulogne, and in Kent! I never laboured hard to unravel them; but time took up the work, and I was patient. Also, I was far away from its scenes, and only passed through them at intervals—generally at express speed. It so happened, however, that I was at hand when the crisis and the close came.
Mrs. Daker was living in a handsome apartment when I called upon her on the morrow of the ball. She wept passionately when she saw me. She said—"I could have sunk to the earth when I saw you with Bertram—of all men in the world." I could get no answers to my questions save that she had heard no tidings of her husband, and that she had never had the courage to write to her father. Plentiful tears and prayers that I would forget her; and never, under any temptation, let her people, should I come across them, know her assumed name, or her whereabouts. I pressed as far as I could, but she shut her heart upon me, and hurried me away, imploring me never to return, nor to speak about her to Cosmo Bertram. "He will never talk about me," she added, with something like scorn, and something very like disgust.
I left Paris an hour or two after this interview; and when I next met Bertram—at Baden, I think, inthe following autumn—great as my curiosity was, I respected Mrs. Baker's wish. He never touched upon the subject; and, since I could not speak, and my suspicions affected him in a most painful manner, I did not throw myself in his way, nor give him an opportunity of following me up. Besides, he was in a very noisy, reckless set, and was, I could perceive before I had talked to him ten minutes, on the way to the utter bad. When I remembered our conversation about Daker, his light, airy, unconcerned manner, and the consummate deceit which effectually conveyed to me the idea that he had never heard the name of Daker, I was inclined to turn upon him, and let him know I was not altogether in the dark. Again, at the ball, he had carried off the introduction to Mrs. Trefoil with masterly coolness, making me a second time his dupe. Had we met much we should have quarrelled desperately; for I recollected the innocent English face I had first seen on the Boulogne boat, and the unhappy woman who had implored me notto speak her name to him. The days follow one another and have no resemblance, says the proverb. I passed away from Baden, and Bertram passed out of my mind. I had not seen him again when I spent those eventful few days at Boulogne with Hanger.
Another year had gone, and I had often thought over the death scene of Daker, and Sharp's trudges about Paris in search of his niece. I could not help him, for I was homeward bound at the time, and shortly afterwards was despatched to St. Petersburg. But I gave him letters. There was one hope that lingered in the gloom of this miserable story; perhaps Mrs. Daker had won the love of some honest man, and, emancipated by Daker's deceit and death, might yet spend some happy days. And then the figure of Cosmo Bertram would rise before me—and I knew he was not the man to atone a fault or sin by a sacrifice.
I was in Paris again at the end of 1866. I heard nothing, save that Sharp had returned home,having tried in vain to find the child to whom he had been a father since the death of his brother. He had identified her as Mrs. Trefoil; he had discovered that shame had come upon her and him; and he had made out the nature of the relations between his niece and Captain Cosmo Bertram. But Captain Bertram was not in Paris; Mrs. Trefoil had disappeared and left no sign. So many exciting stories float about Paris in the course of a season, that such an event as the appearance of a Kentish farmer in search of Mrs. Daker, afterwards Mrs. Trefoil, and the connexion of Captain Bertram with her name, is food for a few days only. This is a very quiet humdrum story, when it is compared with the dramas of society, provincial and Parisian, which theGazette des Tribunauxis constantly presenting to its readers.
When I reached Paris it was forgotten. Miss Tayleure had moved off to Tours—for economy some said; to break new ground, according to others. There had been diplomatic changes. TheEnglish society had received many accessions, and suffered many secessions. I went to my old haunts and found new faces. I was met with a burst of passionate tears by Lucy Rowe, end honest Jane, the servant. Mrs. Rowe was lying, with all her secrets and plots, in Père Lachaise—to the grief, among others, of the Reverend Horace Mohun, who would hardly be comforted by Lucy's handsome continuance of the buttered toast and first look at theTimes. Lucy, bright and good Lucy, had become queen and mistress of the boarding-house—albeit she had not a thimbleful of the blood of the Whytes of Battersea in her veins. But of the Rue Millevoye presently.
I came upon Bertram by accident by the Montmartre cemetery, whither I had been with a friend to look at a new-made grave. As I have observed, Bertram had reached a very low ebb. He avoided his old thoroughfares. He had discovered that all the backs of the Tuileries chairs were towards him. Miss Tayleure had had her revenge before she left.He had heard that "the fellows were sorry for him," and that they were not anxious to see him. The very waiters in his café knew that evil had befallen him, and were less respectful than of old. No very damaging tales, as I have said, were told against him; but it was made evident to him that Paris society had had enough of him for the present, and that his comfortable plan would be to move off.
Cosmo Bertram had moved off accordingly; and when I met him at Montmartre he had not been heard of for many months. I should have pushed on, but he would not let me. A man in misfortune disarms your resentment. When the friend who has been always bright and manly with you, approaches with a humble manner, and his eyes say to you, while he speaks, "Now is not the time to be hard," you give in. I parted with my fellow-mourner, and joined Bertram, saying coldly—"We have not met, Bertram, for many months—it seems years. What has happened?"
The man's manner was completely changed. Hetalked to me with the cowed manner of a conscious inferior. He was abashed; as changed in voice and expression as in general effect.
"Ruin—nothing more," he answered me.
"Baden—Homburg, I suppose?"
"No; tomfoolery of every kind. I'm quite broken. That friend of yours didn't recognise me, did he?"
"Had never seen you before, I'm quite sure."
I took him into a quiet café and ordered breakfast. His face and voice recalled to me all the Daker story; and I felt that I was touching another link in it. He avoided my eye. He grasped the bottle greedily, and took a deep draught. The wine warmed him, and loosed "the jesses of his tongue." He had a long tale to tell about himself! He disburdened his breast about Clichy; of all the phases of his decline from the fashionable man in the Bois to the shabby skulker in thebanlieue, he had something to say. He had been everybody's victim. The world had been against him. Friendshad proved themselves ungrateful, and foes had acted meanly. Nobody could imagine half his sufferings. While he dwelt on himself with all the volubility and wearying detail of a wholly selfish man, I was eager to catch the least clue to a history that interested me much more deeply than his; and in which I had good reason to suspect he had not borne an honourable part. The gossips had confirmed the fears which Mrs. Daker had created. I had picked up scraps here and there which I had put together.
"I am obliged to keep very dark, my dear Q.M.," Bertram said at last, still dwelling on the inconvenience to himself. "Hardly dare to move out of the quarter. Disgusting bore."
"A debt?" I asked.
"Worse."
"What then, an entanglement; the old story, petticoats?"
"Precisely. To-day I ought to be anywhere but here; the old boy is over, or will be, in a few hours."
The whole story was breaking upon me; Bertram saw it, and my manner, become icy to him, was closing the sources upon me. I resolved to get the mystery cleared up. I resumed my former manner with him, ordered some Burgundy, and entreated him to proceed.
"You remember," he said, "your story about the girl you met travelling with her husband on the Boulogne boat—Mrs. Daker." His voice fell as he pronounced the name. "I deceived you, my dear Q. M., when I affected unconcern and ignorance."
"I know it, Bertram," was my answer. "But that is unimportant: go on."
"I met Mrs. Daker at her hotel, very soon after she arrived in Paris. She talked about you; and I happened to say that I knew you. We were friends at once."
"More than friends."
"I see," Bertram continued, much relieved at finding his revelation forestalled in its chief episodes;"I see there is not much to tell you. You are pretty well posted up. I cannot see why you should look so savage; Mrs. Daker is no relation of yours."
"No!" I shouted, for I could not hold my passion—"had she been——"
"You would have the right to call me to account. As it is," Bertram added, rising, "I decline to tell you more, and I shall wish you good-day."
After all Bertram was right; I had no claim to urge, no wrong to redress. Besides, by my hastiness, I was letting the thread slip through my fingers.
"Sit down, Bertram; you are the touchiest man alive. It is no concern of mine, but I have seen more than you imagine—I have seen Daker; I have been with Sharp."
Bertram grasped my arm.
"Tell me all, then; I must know all. You don't know how I have suffered, my dear Q. M. Tell me everything."
"First let me ask you, Bertram, have you been an honourable man to Mrs. Daker?"
"Explain yourself."
"Where is she? Her uncle has broken his heart!"
"All I need say is, that she is with me, and that it is I who have sacrificed almost my honour in keeping her with me, after——"
I understood the case completely now.
"You found the prey at the right moment, Bertram. Poor forsaken woman! You took it; you lost it; it falls into your hands again—broken unto death."
"Unto death!" Bertram echoed.
I related to him my adventure in Boulogne; and when I came to Baker's end, and his bigamy, Bertram exclaimed—
"The villain! My dear Q. M., I loved—I do love her; she might have been my wife. The villain!"
"You say she is with you, Bertram. Where? Can I see her?"
"You cannot, she's very ill So ill, I doubt——"
"And you are here, Bertram?"
"Her uncle—Sharp—is with her by this time. She implored me not to be in the way. There would be a row, you know, and I hate rows."
It was Bertram to the last.Hehated rows! I suddenly turned upon him with an idea that flashed through my mind.
"Bertram, you owe this poor woman some reparation. You love her, you say—or have loved her."
"Do love her now."
"She is a free woman; indeed, poor soul, she has always been. Marry her—take her away—and get to some quiet place where you will be unknown. You will be happy with her, or I have strangely misread her."
"Can't," Bertram dolefully answered. "Not a farthing."
"I'll help you."
Bertram grasped my hand. His difficulty was removed.
I continued rapidly, "Give me your address. I'll see Sharp, and, if they permit me, Mrs. Daker. Let us make an effort to end this miserable business well. You had better remain behind till I have settled with Sharp."
Bertram remained inert, without power of thinking or speaking, in his seat. I pushed him, to rouse him. "Bertram, the address—quick."
"Too late, my dear Q. M.—much too late. She's dying—I am sure of it."
The address was 102 in the next street to that in which we had been breakfasting. I hurried off, tearing myself, at last, by force from Bertram. I ran down the street, round the corner, looking right and left at the numbers as I ran. I was within a few doors of the number when I came with a great shock against a man, who was walking like myself without looking ahead. I growled and was pushing past, when an iron grip fell upon my shoulder. It was Reuben Sharp. He was so altered I had difficulty in recognising him. At thatmoment he looked a madman; his eyes were wild and savage; his lips were blue; his face was masked by convulsive twitches.
"I was running to see you. Come back," I said.
"It's no use—no use. They can ill-treat her no more. My darling Emmy! It's all over—all over—and you have been very kind to me."
The poor man clapped his heavy hands upon me like the paws of a lion, and wept, as weak women and children weep.
Yea, it was all over.
It was on New Year's Day, 1867, I supported Reuben Sharp, following a hearse to the cemetery hard by. Lucy Rowe accompanied us—at my urgent request—and her presence served to soften and support old Reuben's honest Kentish heart in his desolate agony. As they lowered the coffin a haggard face stretched over a tomb behind us. Sharp was blinded with tears, and did not see it.