'So there is an end of my journal,' wrote Helen the same night, when she was the only person awake under the roof. 'All my pretty and pleasant plans of setting down the inmost feelings of my heart, of recording them and every incident of the growth of my mind for Alston's eyes to see, are quite at an end. There is a secret in my life now which he must never know, and a dread within my breast which I cannot say to him that he might soothe it. How wretched they make me! how I detest them! Good heavens, how miserable one may be with everything beside one's-self to make one happy! I read over and over again the few pages I wrote this morning, and I ask myself, Can it be that I wrote them, and that since then I have learned so much of life, seen so much of human nature? That such treachery should exist as Trenton Warren's; that such credulity should exist as Alston's; that such blindness could be as mine! Thank God he has really promised to go away. I shall hardly breathe until he has gone, and I shall never stir beyond the door. He said he would go at once. HowamI to write to Alston? The journal plan I must abandon; I feel that would now be impossible. I must only just do one common every-day letter. Alston will not like it--he will reckon it as only one of my compromises. No matter; it is a convenient excuse for faults far worse even than I have ever committed.'.
Brown-Street, New York, is not a savoury locality. Although it is situated in the heart of the city, lying midway between the palatial splendour of the 'up-town' domestic residences and the enormous blocks of buildings forming the 'down-town' commercial establishments; though it runs parallel with, and at no great distance from, the famous Broadway; and though it has in its rear a magnificent square, where are to be found some of the grand old-fashioned roomy mansions which by their size and substantiality might well put the gimcrack erections of Fifth-avenue to the blush, yet is Brown-street a place of 'no 'count.'
The houses are for the most part two-storied buildings of the shabbiest description; the iron railings which should guard the 'stoop' or flight of steps leading to the doors are generally wanting, having been extracted feloniously for the purpose of sale, or broken up and converted into handy weapons of attack and defence by the Hibernian residents of the colony. The street-doors are but seldom closed, standing three or four inches open, but creaking furiously when further demands are made upon them, as though they had conceded all they meant to give; the windows of the first-floors are uniformly furnished with outside Venetian shutters, which, no matter what may be the time of year, are generally closed during the morning, while in the afternoon the passer-by can discern through them the half-dressed figures of frowsy women and girls, who have no scruple about entering into conversation or indulging in humorous repartee.
What the second-floor contained, none save those who have made their way into such penetralia (among which number I am not one) can say, but there is no doubt as to the purposes to which the underground cellars are applied. These are lager-beer saloons, dram-shops, whisky-stores, in some instances pretended billiard-halls or pistol-galleries, but in every case pandering to the vilest tastes of degraded humanity.
Stumble down these steep, broken, slippery steps and you stumble into Hades, you plunge head foremost into the infernal regions. Here, for the gratification of his countrymen, Max Heilbronn has opened a German gehenna, where Schinken and Blutwurst, dried and highly-seasoned Lachs, provoke the thirst of the Teutons, and induce them to wind up with something far stronger than the mild and insipid lager-beer with which they commence their potations. There Tim O'Dwyer, to insure the happiness of his compatriots, unfurled the green flag over the 'Ould Ireland' store, strewed the stained and battered tables with the latest received numbers of theBloody Pike, thePatriot's Vitriol Bottle, and other cheerful publications, and provided a stock of Bourbon and rye, after the consumption of which his customers would clear the floor and betake themselves to dancing jigs, breaking heads, biting each other's noses off, and other national pastimes.
The street itself, like the majority of the streets of the sort in New York, is strewn with garbage and refuse of every description; no need for its inhabitants to copy the example of their more respectable neighbours, and nightly put forth the barrow filled with the cinders and sweepings of the day; for what the Brown-street denizens have to get rid of, they adopt a more easy way with, and throwing it into the middle of the street, there let it lie. The only one portion of the road which is kept at all decent is the track of the horse-cars, which enormous lumbering vehicles permeate a portion of the street, and by their noise, the cracking of their drivers' whips, and the jangling of their bells attached to the horses, dispel some of the monotony which settles down on the neighbourhood during the daytime.
Some days after Trenton Warren's interview with Helen Griswold, and late in the afternoon, just when the early spring sun had withdrawn his brightness from the world, and the keen savage wind, sweeping through the wide thoroughfares, had reminded men that the reign of winter could scarcely be called at an end, a motley company was assembled in one of the Brown-street cellars, known to its frequenters as Naty Underwood's. A fat man Naty Underwood, with a round face and pendulous cheeks, little thin slits of eyes, and an upturned inquisitive nose; altogether not unlike a pig, whence probably the playful designation 'Porky' by which he is known to his familiars; a reserved man given to much quiet expectoration, a skilful concoctor of drinks, but always in a quiet manner and as unlike the conventional idea of a 'bar-keeper' as possible.
Yet bar-keeping was Naty Underwood's trade, and by the exercise of it he lived. That dark smoke-discoloured saloon, whose original gaudily-stencilled walls now bore huge blots and stains, caused in some places by damp, in others by the sudden outburst of effervescent drinks, was his whisky-store; those long-necked labelled bottles on the wooden counter before him were his stock-in-trade, and the men lounging around were his customers.
Most of these latter, who belonged to that indescribable class of shabby-genteel people so common in New York--people who seem to have no recognised mode of living, who are thin, starved, and ragged, and yet always seem to have enough money to purchase a drink or to pay for a five-cent ride in the cars--most of thesehabituésof the saloon seem known to each other. At the end of the room, however, and just within the swing door by the bottom of the steps, was one who was evidently a stranger; a tall thin man, with a hard round glazed hat pressed down over a mass of tangled hair, and with a thick full beard. He was dressed in a rough short pea-jacket with huge horn buttons, and coarse blue-serge trousers, and looked like the second or third mate of an English collier. He sat with one hand leaning on the table and with his hat pulled well down over his eyes, but from time to time, from under the shade of its broad stiff brim, he looked sharply round at the assembled company as though he half anticipated interruption or attack, or glanced impatiently at the door as though expecting some one whose arrival had been unreasonably postponed.
Unquestionably, this stranger's appearance at Naty's aroused much curiosity amongst the ordinary frequenters of the saloon. There was a tendency amongst them to resent what they considered intrusion, and a chance dropper-in to their charmed circle; though this was a feeling which found no favour with the host, who was only desirous of increasing the number of his guests; and on the present, as well as on several previous occasions, sharp though low muttered contentions had passed between him and them on the subject. Questions as to what the stranger might want there, what a Johnny Bull was crowding into those diggings for, and why Naty didn't take upon himself to 'snake him out of that,' were all met by the bar-keeper with the reply that it was 'none of their business.'
A hint from long, Abe Stevens that he didn't pan out upon Johnny Bulls, and another from wiry Zeek Grimes that he didn't freeze to dock wallopers, were also thrown away upon Naty, and it seemed probable that the landlord would have been called to account even if the comfort of the guests had not been interfered with, had not a clattering on the steps and the swinging open of the door diverted public attention.
These noises were followed by the entrance of a man who, after casting a rapid glance round the room, in b and exchanging a scarcely perceptible sign with the stranger in the sailor's dress, walked up to the bar amid universal signs of recognition and welcome, and clapped his long lean hand into the fat moist palm of Naty Underwood.
A low blackguard-looking fellow this, with his hang-dog air and the shifty furtive glance out of his deep-set eyes; his cheeks were thin and hollow, his unfringed lips bloodless and closely set together; there was nothing of the rough about his physique; no jowl or jaw or lowering cranium, no bull neck; washed and decently dressed he might have passed muster as an ordinary citizen, but now his clothes were of antiquated cut and shiny with grease, his boots broken and bulging, his battered hat stuck on the top of his narrow thin head. That he was known to all, and popular as well, there could be little doubt, for the landlord gripped his hand with friendly warmth, and his entrance was received with cries of 'Hullo, Eph!' and 'Bully for you!' These salutations seemed rather to disconcert the new arrival, who glanced doubtingly to the corner where the sailor was seated; then, after ordering a hot whisky-punch, made his way towards him and took his seat beside him.
'You seem a powerful favourite here,' said the sailor sneeringly, in between his teeth. 'Bully for you and be hanged to it! What did you bring me here for? You knew I wanted to be quiet and unobserved; why did you name for our meeting this place, where you are apparently as well known as a nigger minstrel and as much thought of?'
The man was at first taken aback by this unexpected attack, but soon recovered himself.
'What place should I have named?' said he, in very much the same tone as the sailor had used. 'It is a pity I didn't propose to meet you at the Brevoort House, or in the hall of the Union Club; they would have been pleased to see me there, wouldn't they?' he added, glancing down at his clothes. 'I can't face the music right away, even if you can. I know this to be a safe and quiet place, where we can have our pow-wow in peace, and that is why I brought you here.'
There was something defiant in the air with which he regarded his companion across the table. Perhaps this was the influence of the whisky-punch, which had been brought to him while he was speaking, and of which he took a large gulp.
'Dry up,' said the sailor savagely; 'I don't want any more excuses. I told you to find a place where we could talk without having our conversation listened to, and you say you have done so in bringing me here.'
'And I repeat it,' said the man. 'There was no possibility of your taking me to a respectable house, therefore it devolved upon me to bring you to a crib like this. I should not have proposed it,' he added, dropping his voice, 'if you had been in your old style, but like this'--and he laid his hand lightly on the sailor's rough pea-jacket--'it is right enough.'
'I don't see it,' said the sailor gruffly.
'You never do see anything unless it answers your own purpose,' said the man with a familiar laugh, 'and then it's astonishing how clear your sight becomes. This is how it is: You're a sailor, you see--may be mate of a liner--may be attached to one of the big steam companies--and you have got something you want to dispose of something that you have not paid any duty on, perhaps something that has been handed over to you by a passenger who left the other side under a sort of cloud, and he could not conveniently move it ashore himself--you want to dispose of it as I say, and Eph Jenkins has been recommended to you, and you have arranged to meet Eph Jenkins here; the boys round here know Eph, and will pretty soon guess that that is the sort of business you and he have together.'
`That is extremely satisfactory,' sneered the sailor, pushing back from his forehead some of the overhanging hair which seemed to inconvenience him, and gazing hard at his companion; 'you are still living the same kind of life then?'
'Did you expect me to have been made Secretary to the Treasury, or to have become mayor of New York?' asked the other.
`No,' said the sailor quietly, 'I didn't know but that even a greater change might have befallen you. I thought perhaps you might have become honest.'
'No,' said the man, with a short laugh, 'you didn't think that, or you would not have summoned me to do some work for you. Honest!' he cried, dropping his voice to a low hissing whisper, 'what have such as I, or you, for the matter of that, to do with honesty? I was honest once, but in those days I could have been of no service to you. It is only since I became the degraded brute I am that I fell within your clutches, was made your tool, and employed by you to do your dirty work.'
'For such, let me remark, you have been duly paid.'
'Paid!' cried the man. 'I have received money with which I have bought more whisky, in the hope of making myself drunk, and cheating myself into forgetfulness of the times when I was decent and respectable; money which has kept me from starving, and rendered me available for whatever you might order me to do.'
'Exactly,' said the sailor; 'you have a command of virtuous indignation which would obtain for you the greatest applause at the Bowery, Mr. Jenkins, and extort a perfect ovation of pea-nuts, but I confess you are to me most pleasing when practical. You have done work for me--dirty work you are pleased to call it--and have been paid for it, and how you spent your money was, of course, no affair of mine. Now, as I have already explained to you, I have some very important work to which you must devote your very best energies. If you carry it through successfully--and you are perfectly able to do so if you refrain from drink and one or two other little weaknesses--I shall make it my business to see that your future is provided for. If, on the contrary, by any negligence of yours you fail, I shall use such hold as I have over you in the opposite direction. You comprehend me?'
'Perfectly,' said the man, who had dropped his air of bravado; 'what am I to do?'
'You have here,' said the sailor, taking from his inner breast-pocket a tolerably thick packet, 'a letter of instructions, written out in the fullest possible detail. There is nothing you can want to know that you will not find herein. I may, however, tell you at once, that the service I impose upon you requires you to leave New York; it may be many weeks before you are able to return. Under the circumstances, however, in which you are now situated,' he said, looking around him with an air of disgust, 'you will be rather pleased at the chance of getting away. It isn't a bad billet, you will find. You are to live like a gentleman among gentlemen, but it will require great discretion on your part, and especially abstinence from that;' and he lightly touched the empty glass on the table.
'I understand,' said Jenkins; 'and you may depend upon my being careful. And if I pull it off all right, you will keep to your promise?'
'You never knew me break my word yet, either in reward or punishment,' said the sailor. 'By the way, do you retain that old accomplishment, the exhibition of which on your part first brought us into contact--I mean the power of successfully imitating my handwriting?'
'I think so,' said Jenkins, hanging his head.
'That's right,' said the sailor; 'you may find it useful in this adventure. Now, as regards money. Here,' handing him a roll of dollar bills, 'is some to carry you on for the present. I don't at all imagine it will be enough, as you are by no means to stint yourself; and when you require more, you will find an address in the letter I have given you, to which you are to write for it. Be sure not to write to me, as I may probably be away from New York.'
'I understand,' said Jenkins, 'perfectly.'
'Then I don't think there is any reason for our stopping any longer in this delightful tavern,' said the sailor, rising.
When they reached the top of the steps and were in the open street, he turned round, and giving Jenkins his hand, said:
'Good-night. Be sharp and prudent in this matter for your own sake. And, by the way, from that letter of instructions there is only one detail omitted--bear it well in mind. It is this: that when I direct you to go to Norfolk I shall mean Chicago.'.
Bleeker-Street is not attractive, either for rambling or residence. The tall houses present all the outward and visible signs of over-habitation with which eyes accustomed to exercise themselves in great cities are familiar, and the passage of the often-recurring tramways keeps up a perpetual vibration and a remorseless noise which banish all rest and peace for the sojourner. It is a street to live in only under pressure of necessity; and it is to be presumed that the people who do live in it have no great latitude for choice.
There are, however, degrees of discomfort, disorderliness, and out-of-elbow makeshift even in Bleeker-street, for the houses have numerous and desultory inmates, of all arms in the serried ranks of humanity fighting in the battle of life--only among the rank and file though, be it understood; and the parlours all along the line of the house fronts are mostly occupied by respectable artisans, with a sprinkling of superannuatedrentiersin a small way.
An observer ascending from story to story would find the status of the dwellers in the monotonous dreary houses progressing crab fashion. The poorer in circumstances, the lower in position, the inmate, the higher tip he, she, or they--or much more usually he and she and they--dwelt in the swarming buildings.
To Bleeker-street Ephraim Jenkins took his way when his mysterious authoritative employer dismissed him; and one of the poorest, dingiest, and most crowded of its houses received his somewhat slouching form. His form was a little less slouching than when he had struggled down to the place of rendezvous to meet the sailor; the most inveterate loafer pricks up for a little while under the proud consciousness of having got something to do for which he is going to be paid.
Ephraim Jenkins did not object to a temporary occupation of a kind to leave him a future margin of idleness, without danger of coming to want; and it was with a decided accession of cheerfulness to his countenance and alacrity to his step that he climbed the stair of one of the least inviting of the houses in Bleeker-street to the topmost story, and presented himself in a dull, close, ill-furnished room, carpetless, curtainless, and forlorn-looking. This room had one tenant already--a woman, who sat in an attitude expressive of deep despondency and utter listlessness beside the rusty stove, leaning her head against the wall, and with her hands folded in her black stuff apron.
This woman moved when Ephraim Jenkins entered; but before her glance turned towards him it fell upon an object, commonplace in itself, but to which that unconscious spontaneous look lent a pathetic interest; it was an empty cradle. The woman was still young, and though not quite handsome, was very comely. She had kindly bright dark eyes, black hair, a fresh colour, and a singularly honest expression of countenance. She was neatly though poorly dressed, in what seemed to be an attempt at mourning, but wore no new article of attire; though it was evident the motive of the attempt was recent, for when she spoke to Jenkins, it was with streaming eyes and a broken voice.
'What a time you have been away, and how lonely I have felt!' she said, as he hung his hat on a nail, and threw himself heavily into one of the two chairs in the room.
'Yes, Bess, I've been a goodish bit about it; but it's been worth it,' he replied; 'the tide's on the turn, my girl, and we shall do well now.'
'It's turned too late for me, then. O, Eph, to think it was only yesterday we buried him! It seems like a year of misery.'
The empty cradle had a melancholy meaning. This woman's infant had suddenly sickened and died three days before, and one of the repetitions, countless as human lives, of the human tragedy was going on in that shabby room in Bleeker-street. The woman would not be comforted, because the child was not.
'Poor little Ted!' said Jenkins, with an awkward tenderness of a man honestly endeavouring to soothe a grief which he does not share, and hardly comprehends. 'I daresay it is much better for him; but it's hard on you, Bess, considering how fond you were of him, and how you never grudged the trouble; but he'd never have been well, you know. Even our turn of luck couldn't have straightened his little legs or strengthened his little back; and you would only have fretted worse to see him growing up not able to get along for himself.'
'That's true, Eph; but I can't think about it now,' said the woman with an impatient shiver, as she rose and dried her eyes. 'I would rather have "the trouble," as you call it, and him, than any luck you can tell me of without him.'
'Of course, of course,' assented Ephraim; 'and you must not think I don't miss him too, Bess. Children ain't as much to men as they are to women, because men have so much more to think of.' Mr. Jenkins'sbonâ-fidebelief in his own occupied mind and industrious life was something edifying to behold, not to say humorous. 'And you know, Bess, you're a deal more to me than any children could ever be, and I can't bear to see you fretting.'
She had begun to lay out some tea-things in a noiseless tidy way, and he drew his chair to the table with a not unskilful assumption of wanting his tea. Ephraim Jenkins was loose and a loafer, but he was not more than 'half bad,' and the other half was redeemed by a very genuine and constant love for his wife. She saw the best side of his character always, and she formed an extremely erroneous estimate, happily for her, of the whole of it.
'While the tea is drawing, I will tell you all about it, Bess,' he said; and she sat down quietly, looking straight at him, and evidently trying hard to rally her spirits and fix her attention. 'I thought it was only a temporary job to buy a horse at some Western fair, or to go and look at some premises, or to follow up some debtor,' began Jenkins; 'and I was not a little stumped when I found that Warren wanted me for a big job and some time--three months certain, Bess.'
'Three months! What for?'
'Well, that's it. I don't exactly know what for. At least, I know what I've got to do, but I don't know what it means; however, it's no business of mine, as you'll see.'
Thereupon Ephraim Jenkins proceeded to give his wife an account of the interview between himself and Warren. It was a garbled account, and it presented the mission he had undertaken in a light which he perfectly well knew was not its real one; but he had an elastic conscience, and was apt to accommodate circumstances to his wife's notions when they differed from his own, rather than to abide by the cold, unyielding, and inconvenient letter of facts. He made out to her that he was to be employed as an agent, not as a substitute; for he had an instinctive consciousness that she would take alarm at the other view of the transaction, and discern the existence of indefinite danger in the very evident trickery which it implied. He did not propose to himself to give so very free a version of the transaction as he found himself led into giving, but the fact was, that when he had concluded what he called an 'account' of the interview from which he had just returned, his wife had only two clear ideas about it--the first that he was going to leave her for he did not exactly know how long, the second that he was going to conduct certain business operations of a kind with which she had no reason at all to believe him practically acquainted. She was not an educated woman, but neither was she ignorant, and it struck her as a most unaccountable imprudence that a man of business should put affairs into the hands of a person who had neither knowledge nor position to bring to the transaction of them.
Ephraim Jenkins perceived at once that his story had not satisfied his wife, and that he must improve upon it if he hoped to serve the first important end to be gained,i.e. her willing acquiescence in their indefinite separation.
'Whatever I shall tell her'--so ran the ingenuous current of his thoughts--'I must not let out that I am going to pass for an independent gentleman, for, of course, she would like to have her share in a game of that kind, and why shouldn't she?'
'I don't understand it plain enough yet, Eph,' she said; and Eph knew the resolute ring in the voice, quite free from temper, but meaning him to mind it. 'You must be more distinct, please. And I should like you to tell me how it is that you and this Warren have turned friends again. I never knew much about your quarrel or how you were mixed up with him at first; but it seems to me, considering he wouldn't answer your letters or see you or help you to get anything to do for some time back, he must have some very strong reason for changing round all of a sudden, and putting you into a thing which must want management and must mean confidence.'
'Ain't she shrewd!' thought Jenkins rather admiringly, though his wife's shrewdness bothered him just then; 'goes straight at it and hits it in the hull's-eye.' And then he formed a resolution.
'You are quite right, Bess,' he replied. 'I am sure his reason is a very strong one, only I don't know it, and it don't matter to me, for I am safe to get paid, and you see that's the chief thing, and I'm sure you'll allow--and there's the queerest tricks going on in business, tricks that would make you stare to hear of and you could hardly believe. If there is any such tricks up in this game, you understand, it's Warren will be playing them, not me, and they don't concern me; and you may take your oath Warren knows what he's about. But I am going to tell you something, Bess, which I have not told you before, just because we have always had enough trouble to get along, and a big share of it has been yours, my girl, and I did not want to make it bigger by giving things a look of greater hardship and blacker injustice than they need have; but I can't go on without telling you now, Bess, when you ask me how it comes that Warren has changed his mind and his hand about me. You know he is not aware of your existence!'
'Yes,' Bess replied anxiously, 'I know you thought it better he should not know you were married.'
'I had my reasons. Long ago, Warren said to me he would never get me another job, or help me with another cent, if I mixed myself up in any affair with a woman. I have no doubt he did not mean by that if I married, for he never thought of such a thing, but he just said that, and he meant it. "He would not have any woman told anything about his affairs," he said, "and I had better act on the caution."
'I did, Bess,youknow how, and I have been obliged to stick to it. If I had gone to him and pleaded poor little Ted, instead of softening him, the notion of the poor little crippled baby would only have exasperated him, and he would have told me I was a cursed fool, and might take the consequences. It was only while he believed me to be knocking about alone, and at his beck and call, that I could count on Warren's remembering me sometimes for his own sake; and so I never told him I had a wife, Bess, and I can't tell him now; but I will when this job is through, for I mean to save every cent I can while it is on, and then we will set up in some little way, and I will be steady.'
Poor Bess had heard many such promises already during the two years she had been Ephraim Jenkins's wife, and had tested their worthlessness, but she still cherished the delusion concerning her husband, which, however foolish, is always lovable and excusable in a woman; and therefore she smiled, faintly indeed, for the little tenant had left its cradle empty too lately for the mother's lips to smile in full or genuinely, and said, 'I know you will, Eph; I know you will.'
'That's hearty, my girl, and encourages a man. I will say for you, Bess, you never do nag, not even in your own mind, you know. I know you don't, for I should see it in your face if you held your tongue ever so. And now for what I promised to tell you. There is a reason why Warren should help me, why he should turn round after all his hardness and put a job into my hands rather than into any one else's; for he is my brother, Bess; yes, indeed, my father was his father, but his mother was his father's wife, and my mother was that wife's maid--that's all the difference! Only a trifle!' he added, with a bitter laugh, 'but it made a deuced deal of difference to me. My father's wife died when Warren and I were young children, and we grew up together in a rather indecent sort of fellowship, I daresay--he in the parlour, and I in the stable-yard; but we were never long parted, and there has always been some sort of feeling--a bad sort generally on his side--between us. I have been a loafer and a ne'er-do-well; it is not elevating and encouraging to have such a family history as mine to look back upon; though, mind, I don't mean to lay the blame on that, Bess; that's cant, and cowardly too! Now you know all about it, and you understand why Warren, when he wants some one to help him and to keep it dark, sends for me.'
'Yes, I understand that now, and a good many other things as well,' said Bess, 'and I do hope, Eph, you will get free of him by this job, and let us make a fair start. But what am I to do? I must try to get some plain sewing, I suppose, and stay here, unless I can get a cheaper place!'
'Plain sewing be hanged!' exclaimed Ephraim, slapping the rickety table with his hand and making the cracked crockery-ware ring; you sha'n't go in forthat. I've got a notion, Bess, and I think you will like it. You know what the doctor said, don't you, about poor little Ted's death, and your having to be careful on account of leaving off nursing so suddenly?'
Bess nodded; her eyes filled with tears.
'Well, then'--he spoke with a little effort, creditable to the poor loafer--'look here,' taking a newspaper from his pocket, 'here's an advertisement for a wet-nurse. "Wanted immediately, by Mrs. Alston Griswold, of Fifth-avenue, a young woman to undertake the charge of a delicate infant." What do you say to trying for the place at once? for I must leave you tomorrow, Bess; it's hard lines, but Warren must have his dollar's worth for his dollar; it will be a good one, I'm sure, and if you were to get it, my mind would be at rest about you.'
'O, Eph, to have a child at my breast, and little Ted in his grave!' cried the young mother, with a burst of infinitely touching sorrow, and threw her arms around the 'loafer's' neck.
He let her cry in silence for a few moments, and then she recovered herself, and said:
'This is foolish, I know. The idea is a good one, Eph; but I don't think it can be done. Do you know anything about Mrs. Griswold?'
'No, I don't,' said Jenkins, with an odd look, which his wife did not observe; 'but where's the difficulty? The advertisement is only this morning's, and you might see after the place to-night.'
'No lady would take me without a recommendation, and where am I to get one?'
'O, for the matter of that,' said Jenkins incautiously, 'I'll write you out half-a-dozen different ones in half-a-dozen different hands; and the last lady you lived with can be gone to Europe, so that she can't be applied to.'
One of Mr. Jenkins's accomplishments was a faculty for writing several different hands, which Bess never liked, though she had hitherto regarded it with only a vague disfavour and distrust. But she coloured violently when Jenkins said this, and hastily bade him:
'Hush, hush you are only jesting, and I don't like such jests. No; I will go to this lady, and try if she will engage me when I tell her the truth about our little Ted.'
Bess Jenkins put on her mourning bonnet and shawl--the only new articles of attire in her scanty wardrobe--and the two set off to walk to Fifth-avenue. On the way Jenkins confided to his wife--being forced to do so in order that she might be able to write to him during his absence--that condition of his undertaking which he had been most strenuously cautioned against revealing: his assumption of the name of Warren. Bess was vaguely alarmed when she heard it, and when he told her she must let no one see the address upon her letters; but she felt that remonstrance was now useless, and so she submitted.
In that tall square block of buildings known as Vernon-chambers, Piccadilly, a London bachelor must be fastidious indeed if he cannot, no matter what his tastes may be, find a residence to suit him.
There are suites of rooms, easy of access and commanding enormous rents, and there are single apartments, so loftily situate that they look down upon Buckingham Palace in the distance, which, can be had for a small sum--that is to say, a comparatively small sum when the situation and accommodation are taken into consideration.
The advantages of a residence in Vernon-chambers are great and manifold. It is a great thing for a young man new to the metropolis, and just commencing his career in diplomacy, law, or commerce--for commerce has been found to pay, and is now quite as fashionable as any of the learned professions--to be enabled to put 'Vernon-chambers' on his card, it being a recognised address amongst those dinner-and-ball-giving members of society, the cultivation of whose good will is so necessary to the well-being of all young men.
Then, again, it is in the most desirable quarter of the town; handy to the clubs and to the park; within a shilling fare of all the theatres; and yet providing its inhabitants--those who dwell in the topmost stories at all events--with plenty of fresh air; and the pleasant expanse of the Green-park to look upon, instead of the dismal line of brick or stucco abomination on which most Londoners are compelled to feast their eyes when they come to the window in ungratified search for light and air.
It is probable, however, that none of these considerations figured as inducements in the mind of Mr. Bryan Duval, when, some three years before the period of our story, he took a set of rooms on the second floor, and agreed, without hesitation or attempt at abatement, to pay for them the rather stiff price of three hundred a year.
Mr. Duval did not go much into fashionable society; but at such great houses as he was in the habit of frequenting in the season he would have been as welcome if he lived in Greek-street, Soho--a choice locality, in which, indeed, at some anterior period of his life, he had once pitched his tent. He was not a member of any club, and he would as soon have thought of going into the Thames as into the park; he hated fresh air (his first order in connection with his new rooms was to have double windows made to exclude the noise), and, if he occasionally looked out on the Green-park, it was not with any idea of pleasing his eyes with its verdure, or amusing himself with contemplating what was going on there, but rather in a fit of abstraction, when he had got into what he had called 'a knot' in the work on which he was engaged, and during the disentanglement of which he would, perhaps, lean his forehead against the window, and stare straight out before him, with a prolonged gaze, which saw nothing.
It was not to be imagined, however, that Mr. Duval had selected this residence haphazard; he had a motive for everything he did; and, when it suited him, was ready to explain it in the most candid manner.
'I took these rooms,' he would say to any inquiring friend, 'and I pay about twice what they are really worth, because I wanted them. My business lies sometimes in Bayswater, and sometimes in Basinghall-street'--he would smile grimly as he pronounced the last name--'and I want to be right in the centre, "the hub of the wheel," as they say in America, whence I can fly out east or west with equal ease. Then again, of late years, a certain number of swells, not being able to spend their money quickly enough on the turf, have chosen to mix themselves up with my profession, and this is a handy kind of place to come and see me at when they want. I have not any feeling for them but one of intense contempt; but that, of course, I keep to myself. Out of them I get a certain portion of my bread-and-cheese, and so I treat them civilly enough, never rubbing them the wrong way, never bowing down and worshipping them. Then, again, I want large rooms, for there are books and papers, and files of playbills, and all sorts of things knocking about; and there is a little slip of a room out there--the warm-bath, I call it--where my secretary works; and altogether the crib suits me, and is not so bad.'
'The crib,' as Mr. Duval called it in his pleasantargot, was furnished and fitted with such good taste that it might have puzzled an ingenious Sybarite to suggest an improvement in it.
It has been said that the arrangement of a room often furnishes an index to the owner's mind; and if there be truth in the dictum, Mr. Bryan Duval must be a singular compound of many apparently antagonistic qualities.
The broad, cosy-cushioned, spring-seated ottoman, or divan, in green and gold, which ran the whole length of one side of the room, was counter-balanced by three or four grave, high-backed, Puritan-looking chairs, in the darkest of brown leather; a huge, massive black oak writing-table, littered all over with papers, proof-sheets, and bills, had its pendant in an elegant sandalwood davenport, inlaid with mosaic, on which lay a green velvet blotting-book, with raised crest and monogram. The wall opposite to the ottoman was taken up by a large black oak bookcase, and among the treasures which filled it, and overflowed on to the floor, were rare elzevirs in creamy vellum covers, British classics in stout old leather jackets, a splendid edition of French plays--ancient and modern--rare works on costume splendidly illustrated, novels of the day, blue-books, political pamphlets, two or three thick rolls of Irish ballads bought in Dublin streets, French pasquinades, and comic songsters. A great roaring double breechloader, by Lancaster, hung close over the head of an ancient arquebuse, the stock of which was elegantly inlaid with pearl and ivory, and on the writing-table a gold-hilted dagger--said to have been worn by Henry of Navarre--lay side by side with a very vicious-looking six-shooter, with an inscription on its barrel: 'Jacob F. Bodges and Co., Danville, Pa.'
Nor was the room without examples of art; a wonderfully executed copy of Greuze's 'La Cruche Cassée' hung in the place of honour, proof engravings after Sir Joshua Reynolds and Landseer occupied every available space on the walls, and in a recess, half shaded by deep-green velvet curtains, was a marvellous Venus, by Pradier. But,en revanche, the mantelpiece was studded with Danton's comic caricatures of celebrities, and on the wall, suspended by the frame of Sir Joshua's 'Strawberry Girl,' which overlapped it, was a flaring-coloured lithograph of Pat Hamilton, in his favourite character of Bryan Boroo, with on it a memorandum, in Mr. Duval's own hand: 'Wants situation in third act altered; address Wolverhampton till 29th.'
On a fine morning in early spring the occupant of these rooms stood with his back to the fireplace, where--for the cold winds had not yet abated--some logs were burning on the iron dogs, with an open letter in his hand.
Mr. Bryan Duval was a man of middle size, with small, clear-cut, regular features, and large, dark, melancholy eyes; his soft dark hair was parted in the middle, and taken back behind his ears; his moustaches and imperial were long, and carefully trained--there were times when the exigencies of his profession required that these luxurious appendages should be shaved off, and then, though he was far too conscientious in his art not to sacrifice to it his personal vanity, Mr. Duval mourned and refused to be comforted.
He was gorgeously dressed in a loose jacket and trousers of violet velvet, his small shirt collar, turned down over the deep crimson necktie, was clasped at his throat with a diamond stud, and on the little finger of his small white right hand he wore a massive gold signet ring, engraved with a viscount's coronet of the Duvals, of which great family he always stated his father was a scion.
As Mr. Duval read the letter attentively, which was stamped with a coronet and a large initial L, he brushed away with his hand the wreaths of blue smoke from his cigar, which interfered with its proper perusal, and shook his head slowly.
'It won't do, my dear Laxington,' he muttered, half aloud; 'it really cannot be thought of. It is all very well for you to say that you will stand the racket, that I shall not be liable for a penny, and shall only have to give my name; but you don't appear to understand that that is the exact commodity which is more valuable to me than anything else! It is solely on the strength of my name that I hold my position. I cannot afford to be connected with failure, and failure--and dead failure--it undoubtedly will be, if your lordship proposes to take the Pomona, in order that little Patty Calvert may play leading parts! What a wonderful thing it is,' continued Mr. Duval, throwing down the letter, and plunging his hands into his trousers pockets, 'to see a man in Laxington's position so eager for such an affair as this! I don't think, if I had been born a peer of the realm, with a couple of hundred thousand a year, and vast family estates, that I should have cared to go into management. I imagine I could have filled up my time in a better way than that, and made a good thing of it too. Good heavens, what a taste! To smell gas and orange-peel, to be pushed about by carpenters and supers, to be estimated a nincompoop, and to have to pay a couple of hundred a week for the pleasure! Let me see,' he continued, taking up the letter, '"clear half the receipts, no risk, only give your name. Think of it, and let me know. Yours sincerely, Laxington." No, I think not. Very affectionate, but it won't do. There is no part in any piece of mine which little Patty could attempt to touch, and I have no time to write one for her; so we shall have to fall back upon burlesques and breakdowns and Amazons in their war paint, and that kind of thing, which would not suit my book at all. Besides, that little door, just by the opposite prompt private box, going between the house and the stage, would be always on the swing, and we should have H.R.H.'s and foreign ambassadors, and Tommy This of the Life Guards, and Billy That of the Garrick Club, always tumbling about behind the scenes. I don't think I would entertain it if I were free; but with this American business on hand, it is not worth thinking of a second time, and so I will tell L. at once.'
He touched a handbell as he spoke, and a gray-haired keen-looking man presented himself at the door.
'Good-morning, Mr. Marks,' said Duval. 'Come in, pray. You have brought your usual budget with you, I perceive,' pointing to a bundle of letters which the secretary held in his hand; 'anything of importance?'
'No, sir,' replied Mr. Marks, 'not of any particular importance. Price, the manager of the Alexandria at Ruabon, offers ten shillings a night for theCruiskeen Lawnfor a week certain.'
'Does he!' interposed Mr. Duval, smiling and showing all his white teeth; 'and he has the impudence to call himself "Price." Of course, no!'
'I have written so, sir,' said Mr. Marks. 'They want the music forAnne of Austriaat Durham, and the plot of the scenery forVarco the Vampireat Swansea. I have sent the usual note to the Sunday papers announcing thatPickwick's Progresswill be put into rehearsal at the Gravity on Monday. By the way, sir, will you allow me to suggest that that name has been used before?'
'What name, my dear Mr. Marks?' said Bryan Duval, looking up with an affectation of the greatest innocence.
'Pickwick, sir,' said Mr. Marks; 'Mr. Dickens has a work in which that name occurs.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Duval, stroking his silky moustache, 'by the way, now you mention it, I think he has--curious that that idea did not occur to me before. However, this isPickwick's Progress, and I don't think Mr. Dickens or Mr. Anybodyelse has ever had anything of that sort; at all events, I am clear they can say nothing about infringement of copyright, so we will hold toPickwick's Progress. Mr. Marks. Anything else?'
'A newspaper, sir, from Melbourne, evidently sent by Mr. Prodder.'
'Prodder,' repeated Mr. Duval, closing his eyes; 'ah, I remember--the stage-struck pork-butcher. Yes, and what of Prodder?'
'He seems to have made a great success with Romeo, sir; the paper says he quite hit the taste of the Melbourne audience.'
'Ah, that is not very complimentary to the Melbourne audience, is it, Marks? However, anything more?'
'Yes, sir, a letter from Mr. Van Buren, acknowledging the receipt of your signed copy of the engagement, saying he will take your rooms at the Hoffman House, and either he or Mr. Jacobs will be at the Cunard wharf when the Cuba comes in.'
'Good,' said Bryan Duval, slowly rubbing his hands together. 'Van Buren is a man of business. That engagement is going to turn up trumps, Marks, and my old friends, the Yankees, are going to do me another good turn. By the way, any reply from Miss Montressor?'
'Yes, sir,' said Mr. Marks, 'this,' touching a small pink note. 'She will be here at eleven, precisely.'
'That with a woman means half-past twelve,' said Duval, nodding his head. 'All right. Now be good enough to write a letter for my signature in reply to this from Lord Laxington--polite, of course, but giving no loophole, saying that I should have been delighted, &c., but that I have made other arrangements which prevent the possibility--you understand. You may mention that I am going to America--no, on second thoughts we must let the newspapers have that information first; they would be enwild if it leaked out through private sources.'
Mr. Marks bowed and retired to the warm-bath, Bryan Duval lit another cigar, threw himself on the divan, and taking out a small gilt-edged memorandum-book, began looking through its leaves, and scratching a few figures upon them. 'That's it,' he said to himself after a pause. 'I have three hundred and eighty pounds in the bank now.Pickwick's Progress, if it makes anything like a hit, will probably be good for thirty pounds a night--let's say sixty; then before I sail, the returns from the provinces forAnne of Austria, Varco the Vampire,and theCruiskeen Lawn-the idea of that fellow wanting it for ten shillings a night--ought to bring me eighty pounds--eighty! O, more--let's say two hundred and eighty. I should think that that must be something like a thousand pounds that I ought to take away with me. Then Van Buren's Varieties holds three thousand people at a dollar each--three thousand dollars are six hundred pounds--but the exchange will probably have risen by the time I get there--let us call it eight hundred. It costs them to pull up the curtain two hundred dollars a night. I will make an alteration there, however--great reduction--let's call it seventy dollars. Seventy as against three thousand--let me see,' said Bryan Duval, slowly pulling at his imperial, 'I think I must bring back to England in three months' time at least ten or twelve thousand pounds--'
His calculations were cut short by a whistle from a mouth-piece in the wall, to which he applied his ear; immediately answering with the words: 'Show her up.' 'Miss Montressor below, eh?' he muttered, repeating the information which had been given him through the pipe. 'Now, I think I have got a card in Miss Montressor, if I only handle her rightly.'
He opened a door of communication with his dressing-room, disappeared for a moment, and returned with his hair fresh brushed, and a scented handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket. Then he stepped on to the staircase, and, as Miss Montressor reached the landing, he took her by both hands and led her into the room.
Miss Clara Montressor was a woman of about six-and-twenty, not tall, but what Mr. Duval called 'a good stage height,' not stout, but well developed. Her features were anything but faultless, yet her face, as a whole, was very pretty, and her expression quite charming. She had long lustrous eyes, which, whether they were green or gray, no one had ever been able to determine. Lord Alicampayne of the Life Guards said they were 'bwight blue,' but Miss Theresa Colombo of the T.R.D.L., whose salary was two pounds a week less than Miss Montressor's, and who did not get half so many bouquets, said they were 'cat's eyes.' Her nose was a little retroussé, but she had rich pouting lips, sound small white teeth, and her complexion was such as you only see on a peach, or on a lady who usesPoudre à la Bismuth, dite Veloutine. Her hair, which was one of her chief attractions, was gold-brown, and she had had the sense not to attempt to change its colour. Altogether, Miss Montressor was a very nice-looking person, and very becomingly dressed.
So Mr. Bryan Duval thought, as he seated her on the divan and took up his position in one of the high-backed armchairs in front of her. Mr. Duval's thoughts about his present visitor, and indeed about most ladies, were wholly professional--his time was too valuable to be taken up with flirtation, and he had a free and-easy manner with him which, while it was very agreeable, obviously meant nothing.
'It was very good of you to come here this morning, Miss Montressor,' he commenced, sitting back and waving his scented pocket-handkerchief gently in the air--it was excellent Ess. Bouquet, and he knew that Patchouli and Jockey Club were about Miss Montressor's mark.
'It was very good of you to send for me, Mr. Duval,' said Miss Montressor, without the slightest embarrassment, 'and I was very glad to come--putting aside any question of business--I was anxious to see what you were like without any make-up.'
'Well,' said Duval, jumping up from his seat and striking an attitude, 'and how do you find me?'
'O, exactly the same,' replied the visitor; 'there is no mistaking those raven locks and those spikes,' drawing her finger across her upper lip. 'You are not like old Franklin, who is quite black, or rather quite blue, at night, and a lively piebald--like a horse in a circus--when he comes to rehearsal in the morning. O, it must be delightful to be made love to by you, more especially after a fortnight's Juliet to Hedger's Romeo, and Mr. Hedger always will take his supper between the acts, and he is so partial to spring onions.'
'Horrible Hedger!' cried Duval, throwing up his hands; 'my taste in that line, my dear, don't go beyond the slightestsoupçonof garlic, and I religiously deny myself that when I am acting. One great fault of our English actors is that they know nothing of the delicacies of thecuisine.'
'O, but you do, and you are yourself a most wonderful cook. I know all about that,' she cried, clapping her hands. 'I heard it from a Mr. Foster, an American gentleman whom I was introduced to the other day, and who knew you when you first went out to New York.'
'Ah, by the way, I had a letter from Foster last night. He told me he had met you, and sent you a rather jolly message, which I will deliver to you later on.'
'Why not now?'
'Pleasure after business, my dear. I never do anything until the business which I am transacting is out of hand. By the way, will you have a glass of sherry? You can sip that and talk business at the same time.'
'I think I will, please,' said Miss Montressor simply; 'and is there a biscuit anywhere about? I am awful hungry.'
'Awfully hungry, my dear Clara,' said Bryan Duval, touching her arm lightly with his finger; 'awfully, not awful--adverb, not adjective--don't mind my telling you, do you, dear? These little slips, you know, are awkward in public. A biscuit? Hundreds! thousands! and something better than a biscuit--look here!'
He darted into the ante-room and speedily returned with a silver waiter, covered with a white cloth, which he placed before her.
'Plovers' eggs, my dear Clara,' he cried, handing her a plate; 'shilling apiece in Covent-garden. I tell you the price, not to stint you, but to tickle your appetite--Vienna bread from Popowaski's, the man in the Quadrant; country butter just out of the refrigerator; Oloroso sherry, and a bottle of Brighton seltzer. One, two, three, and you're off.'
'What a ridiculous fellow you are!' said Miss Montressor, with a plover's egg between her pretty, jewel-laden fingers. 'I have always thought of you as a suffering lover, the fiery Raoul, the heart-broken Edgar, but here, at home, you are as jolly as a sandboy.'
'That's because I have to be so uniformly miserable on the stage, my dear,' said Mr. Duval, taking some choice loose tobacco out of the drawer, and rolling up apapelito, 'and one cannot be always doing the water-cart business. Are the plovers' eggs good?'
'Divine.'
'And the Oloroso?'
'Delicious--quite a nutty flavour.'
'O, don't,' cried Bryan Duval, putting up his hand, 'that is out of the advertisement of the Standard Sherry. However, I am glad you like it; and now to business. You have considered my proposition?'
'I have.'
'And you agree to it?'
'Provided the terms suit me; you were to mention them at this meeting.'
'Wisest of females,' said Bryan, puffing a cloud of blue smoke through his nose, and watching it waft away, 'so I was! I don't think there will be any difficulty about them--sixty pounds a week, and half a clear benefit in every town where we stop a fortnight.'
Miss Montressor threw her egg-shell into the plate, wiped her dainty fingers on the napkin, and said, in a deep tragic voice:
'Selim, take me. I am yours!'
'Here,' cried Bryan Duval, in very deep chest notes, 'here and hereafter--ha! ha! cue for prompter to ring for trap. Then we may look upon that as settled.'
'That's so, colonel,' said Miss Montressor, with a slight nasal intonation; 'they are all colonels out there, are they not?'
'There is my hand upon it--tip us your flipper,' cried Bryan Duval; and after shaking hands with his visitor, he hitched up his trousers and danced a few steps of the hornpipe round the room. 'Marks shall draw up the agreement, and we will have it properly signed and sealed. I will let you know the date of sailing, but you had better get ready at once. O, by the way, Foster's message.'
'O yes! what was it?' cried Miss Montressor eagerly.
'Foster is one of those Americans who, when they crawl out of the commercial shell in which they are engaged all day, find no such pleasure, no such thorough change, as the theatre affords them. He is over here on commercial matters, but he is mad about theatricals; and he is going to give a dinner at Richmond on Sunday, and he wants you to go.'
Miss Montressor hesitated for a moment. She had certain relations, of which no one but herself and those in her immediate household were aware, and she wondered whether these 'relations' would prove a hindrance to her accepting the invitation.
Bryan Duval saw the look in her face, and had a vague idea of what she was pondering over--vague, but still an idea--he had known so many Miss Montressors in his life.
'Don't hesitate,' he said; 'don't make any mistake about it; it is going to be a tremendously jolly party; lots of people you know--fellows in the Guards, and fellows on the press, and a good dinner, and no end of fun. Say "yes."'
'I will,' said Miss Montressor. 'You can tell Mr. Foster I shall be delighted to come.'
'Right,' said Bryan Duval. 'Then I will drive you down. I will tool my chestnuts up to the villa at four P.M. precisely.'
Miss Montressor stepped into her neat little brougham in a very complacent state of mind. She had long wished to be a star, but her chances in this hemisphere had not been great. Here was a fulfilled ambition, accompanied, indeed, with certain difficulties, which, however, the lady felt disposed to treat philosophically as mere points of detail. She had time to make up her mind as to her mode of action on a certain complex line very near her hand before the brougham stopped at the unpretending entrance to her very pretty abode at Brompton. She rather expected to find Mr. Dolby waiting for her, and her first question to her maid was whether he had yet arrived. The answer was in the affirmative, so she went straight into the drawing-room, where she found Mr. Dolby occupied in patiently examining the contents of a photograph-book, with which he had been long familiar. Miss Montressor skilfully assumed a tone, not only of satisfaction, but of girlish elation, as she ran forward, exclaiming: 'Isn't it delightful? It's all settled!'
Mr. Dolby closed the photograph-book, replaced it on the table, and looked up at her. There was no elation nor delight in his countenance as he said: 'Are you alluding to the engagement?'
'Of course I am. What else do you suppose I was talking about?'
'I did not presume to guess. You are extravagantly delighted or inconceivably distressed, in the wildest spirits or in the depths of despair, so frequently, for causes which my incomplete male understanding is incapable of discerning, that I did not know whether it might be a question of a new trimming, or an exchange of dogs between you and Miss Campbell, which had produced that very becoming animation to which you have not treated me lately.'
'O,' said Miss Montressor, 'you are out of temper. You were yesterday, you know, and you have not got over it. How I hate men who keep up spite! I have a great mind not to tell you anything that has occurred to-day.'
'I should be aghast at the threat if I did not know by experience that you are what you call "dying to tell me;" whereas I am quite willing to hear, and I can therefore wait,' said Mr. Dolby.
All this was rather trying, and calculated to damp the high spirits with which Miss Montressor had returned; but she was accustomed to the acerbity of Mr. Dolby's humour, and she made light of it. 'What an unpleasant man he would be as a husband!' she often thought in her odd frank way. 'I would not be his wife for any consideration; he would bully any one he could not get away from awfully.'
This familiar reflection passed through her mind on the present occasion; but it did not impair the cheerfulness of her countenance, or the glee in her voice, as she proceeded in a rather chattering style to repeat to Mr. Dolby the particulars of her interview with Bryan Duval, and to dilate upon the thorough appreciation of her gifts and powers which that prince of dramatists, actors, and good fellows had displayed. 'So encouraging,' she said, 'and so delightful, to find a person really above the jealousy which had hitherto led to her being so unjustly treated.'
After all, the faculty for discovering and utilising the powers of others to hit the public taste was the great secret of the great actor.
Miss Montressor did not know whether Bryan Duval had been quite so judicious and wise in the selection of certain other members of the company whom he proposed to take with him; she had her doubts on that point; but one must only work with the materials one has at hand. His fair Clara, in the character of critic and practical philosopher, afforded Mr. Dolby not a little amusement; and as he was not easily or often amused, he encouraged her to talk much more than usual. Mr. Dolby was not very communicative, nor did he, as a rule, like much talking--a defect in his disposition by no means agreeable to Miss Montressor's taste. He was rather given to absence of mind, and that is a tendency much disliked and resented by women, not unnaturally. Sometimes Mr. Dolby would fall into fits of musing, under whose influence he would rise and pace the room slowly to and fro, to and fro, with an utter abstraction in his face, which told Miss Montressor that his mind was far away, and that she was utterly banished from it, that she had no place at all, not even as a speck on the horizon, in his mental vision.
During these fits of abstraction he did not talk to himself aloud, indeed, but his lips moved; and his knitted brows, and the inward look of his eyes, were plain indications that he was not merely absent in the direct sense of idle purposeless reverie, but that some subject of deep, concentrated, and all-absorbing interest was occupying all the approaches to the citadel of thought.
Miss Montressor regarded this kind of thing as tiresome, a bore, and a mistake, a serious drawback to Mr. Dolby's excellence as a companion; but it inspired her with no further feeling, it wakened no curiosity. Business was almost as occult a phrase for Miss Montressor as it was for Helen Griswold, and she invariably concluded either that something had gone wrong in business or that Mr. Dolby was meditating some coup in business when he forgot to listen to her, left off talking to her, and walked up and down her pretty drawing-room, touching the chairs and tables unconsciously as he passed them with his finger tips, as she remembered having heard some one say Dr. Johnson used to touch the posts in Fleet-street.
Miss Montressor would have been seriously annoyed, however, if Mr. Dolby had gone off into one of his fits of absence on the present occasion. Her own business was in the wind now, and she considered it worthy of his undivided attention. He did not try her patience on this point; he listened with genuine interest, which received a quite perceptible stimulus when Miss Montressor mentioned that all the arrangements and preparations were being greatly assisted and facilitated by her American friend, Mr. Foster.
'Foster!' said Mr. Dolby, stooping to pick up his paper-knife; 'the New York man, I suppose?'
'Yes, I think so; a very pleasant agreeable man, and very fond of theatricals. He saw Bryan Duval years ago in New York, and called on him as soon as he came to London. He gave me a delightful sketch of the reception we are certain to meet with, and has promised us private introductions to no end.'
'Foster I' repeated Mr. Dolby, in a pondering tone. 'I don't think I know any one of the name--it is not common among us. What sort of looking man is he?'
'Decidedly good-looking--more like an Englishman than an American, I fancy, according to our notions of what you call the "American type."'
Mr. Dolby laughed. 'Don't talk stuff about the American type, my child; there is no such thing. There are scores of types among us, the most cosmopolitan and practical nation in the world. I now remember exactly what you mean by Mr. Foster's being more like an Englishman than an American. You mean that he looks healthy, cheery, and as if neither his sleep nor his digestion was ever troubled by overwork and anxiety. This is one of the favourite delusions of superficial writers and random talkers. Nothing has struck me, since I have been in London, more forcibly than the absence of the so-called English type among Englishmen. The rosy complexions, the stalwart forms, the unembarrassed open countenances, are just as scarce in London city as in New York; everybody looks anxious, it seems to me, and most people look tired. What is Foster?'
He asked the question with a strange suddenness. One would have thought by his manner he had forgotten Miss Montressor's mention of her friend in the discussion of the abstract question; but he had not.
'What is he? I don't know; I did not hear; but I presume he is over here on business of some kind. O, yes, by the bye, he must be, for Bryan Duval told me Mr. Foster had come against his will, and wants to get back. That doesn't look like pleasure, does it?'
'Not particularly. However, Mr. Foster is no concern of mine, only your meeting any New York man reminds me to impress upon you that you must not talk about me. Are you attending to me, Clara?'
'O, yes, I am attending to you; and I am sure you need not be afraid of my telling anything you don't want to have known. I have kept you dark everywhere, and it is rather dull, I can tell you.'
'Rather dull, is it?' said Mr. Dolby, with a smile. 'You would like a little more dash about our cosy little arrangements, wouldn't you? You would like me to do the dinner-at-Richmond and drag-to-races business. Mr. Foster has been putting that into your head. No, no, my dear, that is not my line at all; and you must take me as I am, you know. You are going to star it besides, and you will have plenty of fun and frolic when away from me; and I am all alone by myself in this big place.'
Miss Montressor gave her head a toss, half disdainful, half incredulous. She remembered the ease with which Mr. Dolby had made her acquaintance, and she believed in his constancy as little as she valued it.
'I shall not inquire too minutely into your sources of consolation,' she said; 'and if I were discontented with the present state of things, you may be quite certain that I should let you know it. It is only men's wives, remember, who have to put up with the style of life they don't like, because their husbands do like it; as for us,Vive la liberté!'
'By all means,' said Mr. Dolby. 'I echo the sentiment which you have declaimed so prettily.'
She had advanced her right foot, tossed her arm over her upreared head, and made believe to wave a flag with a gesture full of spirit. She often produced effects in private life of which her stage performances fell very far short.
'And since you have mentioned dinners at Richmond,' said Miss Montressor, with characteristic inconsequence, 'I may as well tell you at first as last that I am going to dine at Richmond with Duval and the whole lot. It is Mr. Foster's dinner, and he has sent me an invite through Duval, so I said I should be delighted. Duval drives me down--he is to call for me at four.'
She spoke with considerable volubility, which Mr. Dolby correctly interpreted.
'All right,' he replied; 'have we not just agreedVive la liberté?-and especially thelibertéwhich brings such pleasant things in its train by its prolonged life. I am particularly grateful to my hospitable compatriot with a taste for theatricals, for I am obliged to go to Brighton to-morrow, and I shall not get back until Monday morning.'
'I was just about to tell you I should not see you again till then, so it all happens most conveniently. He doesn't like it a bit,' thought Miss Montressor, 'but he carries it off pretty well--rather a clever invention, that Brighton business; but it doesn't impose on me.' She remarked aloud simultaneously, with great good humour, 'This is really fortunate, as it turns out; but you might have come, you know, if you hadn't any objection to meeting Mr. Foster--Bryan Duval would have got an invite for you directly.'
'Thanks,' said Mr. Dolby, with perfect gravity; 'such a kindness would have been invaluable under other circumstances; but, as you have just said, I have no fancy for meeting Mr. Foster.'
'That is lucky,' thought Miss Montressor, as Mr. Dolby bade her adieu, 'for I have.'