Volume One—Chapter Twenty.Barclay’s Tenants.“It was scandalous,” Saltinville said, “that she should accept it.”But she did: a handsome little carriage that came down from Long Acre, and was sent round to the stables, where Cora Dean’s ponies were put up and kept now on a shorter allowance of corn.The note was a simple one, written in a very large hand that was decidedly shaky. There was a coronet on the top, and its owner, Lord Carboro’, begged Miss Dean’s acceptance of the little gift, with his sorrow that he was the cause of the mishap, and his congratulations that she was not hurt.This was all very refined and in accordance with etiquette. The postscript looked crotchety.“P.S.—Tell your people not to give them so much corn.”Cora did so, and said that she should drive out to show the people of Saltinville that she was no coward.“Then I’ll go with you, Betsy,” said Mrs Dean, “to show ’em I ain’t, too: and, you mark my words, this’ll be the making of you in society.”So Cora took her drives as of old, found that she was very much noticed by the gentlemen, very little by the ladies, but waited her time.The Deans lodged at one of the best houses in the Parade—a large, double-fronted place facing the sea, with spacious balcony and open hall door, and porch ornamented with flowers.The little groom sprang down and ran to the ponies’ heads as his mistress alighted, and after sweeping her rich dress aside, held out her hand for her mother, who got out of the carriage slowly, and in what was meant for a very stately style, her quick beady eyes having shown her that the windows on either side of the front door were wide open, while her sharp ears and her nose had already given her notice that the lodgers were at home—a low buzzing mellow hum with a wild refrain in high notes, announcing that old Mr Linnell was at work with his violoncello to his son’s violin, and a faint penetrating perfume—or smell, according to taste—suggesting that Colonel Mellersh was indulging in a cigar.Mrs Dean’s daughter was quite as quick in detecting these signs, and, raising her head and half closing her eyes, she swept gracefully into the house, unconscious of the fact that Richard Linnell drew back a little from the window on one side of the door, and that Colonel Mellersh showed his teeth as he lay back in his chair beside a small table, on which was a dealt-out pack of cards.“I should like to poison that old woman,” said the Colonel, gathering together the cards.“I wish Mr Barclay had let the first floor to some one else, Richard,” said a low pleasant voice from the back of the room.P-r-r-rm, Pr-um!The speaker did not sayPr-r-rm, Pr-um! That sound was produced by an up and down draw of the bow across the fourth string of the old violoncello he held between his legs, letting the neck of the instrument with its pegs fall directly after into the hollow of his arm, as he picked up a cake of amber-hued transparent rosin from the edge of a music stand, and began thoughtfully to rub it up and down the horse-hair of the bow.The speaker’s was a pleasant handsome face of a man approaching sixty; but though his hair was very grey, he was remarkably well-preserved. His well-cut rather effeminate face showed but few lines, and there was just a tinge of colour in his cheeks, such as good port wine might have produced: but in this case it was a consequence of a calm, peaceful, seaside life. He was evidently slight and tall, but bent, and in his blue eyes there was a dreamy look, while a curious twitch came over his face from time to time as if he suffered pain.“It would have been better, father,” said Richard Linnell, turning over the leaves of a music-book with his violin bow, “but we can’t pick and choose whom one is to sit next in this world.”“No, no, we can’t, my son.”“And I don’t think that we ought to trouble ourselves about our neighbours, so long as they behave themselves decorously here.”“No, no, my son,” said Linnell, senior, thoughtfully. “There’s a deal of wickedness in this world, but I suppose we mustn’t go about throwing stones.”“I’m not going to, father, and I’m sure you wouldn’t throw one at a mad dog.”“Don’t you think I would, Dick?” with a very sweet smile; and the eyes brightened and looked pleased. “Well, perhaps you are right. Poor brute! Why should I add to its agony?”“So long as it didn’t bite, eh, father?”“To be sure, Dick; so long as it didn’t bite. I should like to run through thatadagioagain, Dick, but not if you’re tired, my boy, not if you’re tired.”“Tired? No!” cried the young man. “I could keep on all day.”“That’s right. I’m glad I taught you. There’s something so soul-refreshing in a bit of music, especially when you are low-spirited.”“Which you never are, now.”“N-no, not often, say not often, say not often. It makes me a little low-spirited though about that woman and her mother, Dick.”“I don’t see why it should.”“But it does. Such a noble-looking beautiful creature, and such a hard, vulgar, worldly mother. Ah, Dick, beautiful women are to be pitied.”“No, no: to be admired,” said Richard, laughing.“Pitied, my boy, pitied,” said the elder, making curves in the air with his bow, while the fingers of his left hand—long, thin, white, delicate fingers—stopped the strings, as if he were playing the bars of some composition. “Your plain women scout their beautiful sisters, and trample upon them, but it is in ignorance. They don’t know the temptations that assail one who is born to good looks.”“Why, father, this is quite a homily.”“Ah, yes, Dick,” he said, laughing. “I ought to have been a preacher, I think, I am always prosing. Poor things—poor things! A lovely face is often a curse.”“Oh, don’t say that.”“But I do say it, Dick. It is a curse to that woman upstairs. Never marry a beautiful woman, Dick.”“But you did, father.”The old man started violently and changed colour, but recovered himself on the instant.“Yes, yes. She was very beautiful. And she died, Dick; she died.”He bent his head over his music, and Richard crossed and laid his hand upon his shoulder.“I am sorry I spoke so thoughtlessly.”“Oh, no, my boy; oh, no. It was quite right. She was a very beautiful woman. That miniature does not do her justice. But—but don’t marry a beautiful woman, Dick,” he continued, gazing wistfully into his son’s face. “Now thatadagio. It is a favourite bit of mine.”Richard Linnell looked as if he would have liked to speak, and there was a troubled expression on his face as he thought of Claire Denville’s sweet candid eyes; but he shrank from any avowal. For how dare he, when she had given him but little thought, and—well, she was a beautiful woman, one of those against whom he had been warned.He looked up and found his father watching him keenly, when both assumed ignorance of any other matter than theadagiomovement, the sweet notes of which, produced by the thrilling strings, floated out through the open window, and up and in that of the drawing-room floor overhead, where on a luxurious couch Mrs Dean had thrown herself, while her daughter was slowly pacing the room with the air of a tragedy queen.“Buzz-buzz; boom-boom! Oh, those horrid fiddlers!” cried Mrs Dean, bouncing up and crossing to the fireplace, where she caught up the poker; but only to have her hand seized by her daughter, who took the poker away, and replaced it in the fender.“What are you going to do?”“What am I going to do? Why thump on the floor to make them quiet. Do you suppose I’m going to sit here and be driven mad with their scraping! This isn’t a playhouse!”“You will do nothing of the sort, mother.”“Oh, won’t I? Do you think I’m going to pay old Barclay all that money for these rooms, and not have any peace? Pray who are you talking to?”“To you, mother,” said Cora sternly; and the stoutly-built, brazen-looking virago shrank from her daughter’s fierce gaze. “You must not forget yourself here, among all these respectable people.”“And pray who’s going to? But I don’t know so much about your respectability. That Colonel, with his queer looks like the devil in ‘Dr Faustus,’ is no better than he should be.”“The Colonel is a man of the world like the rest,” said Cora coldly.“Yes, and a nice man of the world, too. And that old Linnell’s living apart from his wife. I know though—”“Silence!”“Now look here, Betsy, I won’t have you saysilenceto me like that. This here isn’t the stage, and we aren’t playing parts. Just you speak to me proper, madam.”“Mother, I will not have you speak of Mr Linnell like that.”“Ho, indeed! And why not, pray? Now, look here, Betsy,” she cried, holding up a warning finger, “I won’t have no nonsense there. I’m not a fool. I know the world. I’ve seen you sighing and looking soft when we’ve passed that young fellow downstairs.”Cora’s eyes seemed to burn as she fixedly returned her mother’s look.“Oh, you may stare, madam; but I can see more than you think. Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, making eyes at a poor, penniless fiddler, when you might—”“I—I don’t want to quarrel, mother,” cried Cora, “but if you dare to speak to me again like that I’ll not be answerable for myself.”“There!—there!—there! There’s gratitude!”“Gratitude? Where should I have been but for Mr Linnell’s bravery, and which of the wretched dressed-up and titled dandies stirred to save me the other day? Richard Linnell is a brave, true-hearted man, too good to marry an actress.”“She’s mad—she’s mad—she’s mad! There’s grace; and to her mother, too, who’s thought of nothing but getting her on in the world, and brought her forward, so that now she can live on the best of everything, in the handsomest of rooms, and keep her carriage. She flies in her poor mother’s face, and wants to get rid of her, I suppose. Oho—oho—oh!”Mrs Dean plumped herself down into a gilded chair, and began to howl very softly.“Don’t be a fool, mother,” said Cora. “I don’t want to quarrel, I tell you, so hold your tongue.”“After the way I’ve brought her up, too,” howled Mrs Dean—softly, so that the sound should not be heard downstairs.“After the way you’ve brought me up!” cried Cora fiercely. “Yes; brought me up to be sneered at by every lady I meet—brought me up so that I hate myself, and long sometimes to be one of the poor women we see knitting stockings on the beach.”“Don’t be a fool, Cory, my handsome, beautiful gal,” cried Mrs Dean, suddenly starting up in her seat, dry-eyed and forgetful of her grief. “How can you be so stupid!”“Stupid!” cried Cora bitterly. “Is it stupid to wish myself a woman that some true-hearted man could love, instead of looking forward to a life of acting.”“Oh, how you do go on to be sure. I am surprised at you, Cory. I know what you’d say about the life as them leads as ar’n’t in the profession, but don’t you be a fool, Betsy. ‘Your face is your fortune, sir, she said,’ as the song says; working your fingers to the bone won’t keep you out of the workus. Don’t tell me. I know. I’ve known them as has tried it. Let them work as likes. I like a cutlet and a glass of fine sherry, and some well-made coffee with a noo-laid egg in it, and it ain’t to be got by folks as works their fingers to the bone.”“And who wants to work their fingers to the bone, mother?” cried Cora, tearing off and flinging down her handsome feathered hat. “In every face I see there’s the look—‘You’re only one of the stage-players—a rogue and a vagabond.’ I want to lead some life for which I need not blush.”“As she needn’t blush for! Oh, dear, oh, dear! When her father trod the boards and her mother was born on ’em! What a gal you are, Betsy,” said Mrs Dean, who professed high good humour now, and she rocked herself to and fro, and pressed her hands on her knees as she laughed. “Oh, I say, Cory, you are a one. You will act the injured fine lady in private life, my dear. Why, what a silly thing you are. Look at that hat you’ve chucked down. Didn’t it cost five guineas?”“Yes, mother, it cost five guineas,” said Cora wearily.“And you can have whatever you like. Oh, I say, my lovely gal, for you really are, you know, don’t get into these silly fits. It’s such stuff. Why, who knows what may happen? You may be right up atop of the tree yet, and how about yon folks as passes you by now? Why, they’ll all be as civil and friendly as can be. There, there, come and kiss me, ducky, we mustn’t quarrel, must we? I’ve got my eyes open for you, so don’t, don’t, there’s a dear. I know what these things means—don’t go chucking yourself at that young Linnell’s head.”“Let Mr Linnell alone, mother.”“But I can’t, my luvvy; I know too well what these things mean. Why, there was Julia Jennings as was at the Lane—it was just afore you was born. There was a dook and a couple of lords, and carridges and horses, and livery suvvants, and as many jewels and dymonds and dresses as she liked to order; and if she didn’t kick ’em all over and marry a shopman, and lived poor ever after. Now do, my luvvy, be advised by me. I know what the world is, and—Gracious goodness! there’s somebody coming up the stairs.”Mrs Dean threw herself into an attitude meant to be easy, and Cora smoothed her knitted brows as there was a knock at the door, and, after a loud “Come in,” a neat-looking maid entered.“Mr Barclay, please, ma’am.”“Show him up, Jane,” said Mrs Dean sharply; and then, as the door closed, “The old rip’s come after his rent. How precious sharp he is.”“Morning, ladies,” said Barclay. “I heard you were in. Glad to see you are no worse for your accident the other day.”He glanced at Cora, who bowed rather stiffly, and said “Not at all.”“I can’t say that, Mr Barclay. I’m a bit shook; but, as I said to my daughter, I wasn’t going to show the white feather, and the ponies go lovely now.”“Well, I’m glad of that.”“And I’m so much obliged to you for helping of me. Do you know, it was just like a scene in a piece we—er—saw once at the Lane.”“Oh, it was nothing ma’am, what I did. Miss Dean, there, she took off all the honours. No cold, I hope.”Cora did not answer.“Plucky fellow, young Linnell; but poor, you know, poor.”“So I’ve heard,” said Mrs Dean maliciously. “I was thinking of sending him ten guineas.”“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, ma’am,” said Barclay.“Oh, well, I must saythankyesome other way. Very kind of you to call. I said to my daughter, ‘There’s Mr Barclay come for his rent,’ but I was wrong.”“Not you, ma’am,” said Barclay, whose eyes were rapidly taking in the state of the room. “Business is business, you know,” and he took another glance at the rich furniture and handsome mirrors of the place.“Oh, it’s all right, Mr Barclay. We’re taking the greatest care of it all, and your rent’s all ready for you, and always will be, of course.”“Yes, yes, I know that, ma’am. I’ve brought you a little receipt. Saves trouble. Pen and ink not always ready. I keep to my days. So much pleasanter for everybody. Nice rooms, ain’t they?” he added, turning to Cora.“Yes, Mr Barclay, the rooms are very nice,” she said coldly and thoughtfully.“Anything the matter with her?” said Mr Barclay, leaning forward to Mrs Dean, and taking the money she handed in exchange for a receipt. “Not in love, is she?”Mrs Dean and her visitor exchanged glances, and smiled as Cora rose and walked to the window to gaze out at the sea, merely turning her head to bow distantly when the landlord rose to leave.“I’m a regular scoundrel, ’pon my soul I am,” said Josiah Barclay, rubbing his nose with the edge of a memorandum book; “but they pay very handsomely, and if I were to refuse to let a part of a house that I furnish on purpose for letting, without having the highest moral certificates of character with the people who want the rooms, I’m afraid I should never let them at all. Bah! it’s no business of mine.”He went back to the front door and knocked, to be shown in directly after to where Colonel Mellersh was sitting back in his chair, having evidently just thrown down the pack of cards.“Morning, Shylock,” he said, showing his white teeth. “Want your pound of flesh again?”“No, thank ye, Colonel; rather have the ducats. I say, though, I wish you wouldn’t call me Shylock. I’m not one of the chosen, you know.”“That I’ll take oath you’re not, Barclay,” said the Colonel, looking at his visitor with a very amused smile. “Your future is thoroughly assured. I’m sorry for you, Barclay, for I don’t think you’re the worst scoundrel that ever breathed.”“I say, you know, Colonel, this is too bad, you know. Come, come, come.”“Oh, I always speak plainly to you, Barclay. Let me see; can you let me have a hundred?”“A hundred, Colonel?” said the other, looking up sharply; “well, yes, I think I can.”“Ah, well, I don’t want it, Barclay. I know you’d be only too glad to get a good hold of me.”“Wrong, Colonel, wrong,” said Barclay, chuckling as he glanced at the cards. “You do me too much good for that.”“Do I?” said the Colonel, smiling in a peculiarly cynical way. “Well, perhaps I do influence your market a little. There,” he said, taking some notes from his little pocket-book, and handing them to his visitor, “now we are free once more.”“Thankye, Colonel, thankye. You’re a capital tenant. I say, by the way, after all these years, I shouldn’t like to do anything to annoy you: I hope you don’t mind the actors upstairs.”“No,” said the Colonel, staring at him.“Because if you did complain, and were not satisfied, I’d make a change, you know.”“Don’t trouble the women for my sake,” said the Colonel gruffly. “Look here, Barclay, how would you play this hand?”He took up the cards as he spoke, shuffled them with an easy, graceful movement, the pieces of pasteboard flying rapidly through his hands, before dealing them lightly out upon the table, face upwards, and selecting four thirteens.“Now,” he said, “look here. Your partner holds two trumps—six, nine; your adversaries right and left have knave and ace; B on your right leads trumps—what would you do?”Barclay knit his brow and took the Colonel’s hand, gazing from one to the other thoughtfully, and then, without a word, played the hand, the Colonel selecting those cards that would be played by the others till the hand was half through, when Barclay hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to throw away a trick.“Why did you do that?” said the Colonel sharply.“Because by losing that I should get the next two.”“Exactly!” cried the Colonel with his eyes flashing. “That endorses my opinion. Barclay, I shan’t play against you if I can help myself. Money-lending seems to sharpen the wits wonderfully. What a clever old fox you are!”“One’s obliged to be clever now a days, Colonel, if one wants to get on. Well, I must go. I have to see your neighbours. Rents are very bad to get in.”“I suppose so,” said the Colonel drily. “Good-morning.”“I wonder what he makes a year by his play,” said Barclay to himself, as he went back to the front door to knock for the third time. “I believe he plays square, too, but he has a wonderful head, and he’s practising night and day. Now for old Linnell.”He was shown into Mr Linnell’s room the next minute, to find that he was expected, and that he was gravely and courteously received, and his rent paid, so that there was nothing for him to do but say “Good-morning.” But Josiah Barclay’s conscience was a little uneasy, and in spite of the fact that his tenant was far from being a rich man, there was something in his grave refined manner that won his respect.“Wish you’d come and see us sometimes, Mr Linnell, just in a friendly way, you know. Chop and glass o’ sherry with Mrs Barclay and me; and you’d join us too, Mr Richard, eh?”“Thank you, Mr Barclay, no,” said Richard’s father; “I never go out. Richard, my son, here, would, I dare say, accept your invitation.”“Oh, but can’t you too, eh? Look here, you know, you’re a man who loves bits of old china, and I’ve quite a lot. Really good. Come: when shall it be?”“Don’t press me now, Mr Barclay,” said his tenant gravely. “Perhaps some other time.”“Then you’re offended, Mr Linnell. You’re a bit hipped because of the other lodgers, you know.”“Mr Barclay, I have made no complaints,” said the elder Linnell quietly.“No, you’ve made no complaints, but you show it in your way, don’t you see. It wasn’t for me to be too strict in my inquiries about people, Mr Linnell. I’m sorry I offended you; but what can I do?”“Mr Barclay has a perfect right to do what he pleases with his own house,” replied the elder Linnell with dignity. “Good-day.”“Now I could buy that man up a hundred times over,” grumbled Barclay as he walked away, richer by many pounds than when he started on his journey that morning; “but he always seems to set me down; to look upon me with contempt; and young Richard is as high and mighty as can be. Ah, well, wait a bit!—‘Can you oblige me with fifty pounds, Mr Barclay, on my note of hand?’—and then p’raps they’ll be more civil.“Things ain’t pleasant though, just now. One house made notorious by a murder, and me letting a couple of actresses lodge in another. Well, they pay regular, and I dare say she’ll make a good match somewhere before long; but I’m afraid, when the old lady gets to know they’re stage people, there’ll be a bit of a breeze.”
“It was scandalous,” Saltinville said, “that she should accept it.”
But she did: a handsome little carriage that came down from Long Acre, and was sent round to the stables, where Cora Dean’s ponies were put up and kept now on a shorter allowance of corn.
The note was a simple one, written in a very large hand that was decidedly shaky. There was a coronet on the top, and its owner, Lord Carboro’, begged Miss Dean’s acceptance of the little gift, with his sorrow that he was the cause of the mishap, and his congratulations that she was not hurt.
This was all very refined and in accordance with etiquette. The postscript looked crotchety.
“P.S.—Tell your people not to give them so much corn.”
Cora did so, and said that she should drive out to show the people of Saltinville that she was no coward.
“Then I’ll go with you, Betsy,” said Mrs Dean, “to show ’em I ain’t, too: and, you mark my words, this’ll be the making of you in society.”
So Cora took her drives as of old, found that she was very much noticed by the gentlemen, very little by the ladies, but waited her time.
The Deans lodged at one of the best houses in the Parade—a large, double-fronted place facing the sea, with spacious balcony and open hall door, and porch ornamented with flowers.
The little groom sprang down and ran to the ponies’ heads as his mistress alighted, and after sweeping her rich dress aside, held out her hand for her mother, who got out of the carriage slowly, and in what was meant for a very stately style, her quick beady eyes having shown her that the windows on either side of the front door were wide open, while her sharp ears and her nose had already given her notice that the lodgers were at home—a low buzzing mellow hum with a wild refrain in high notes, announcing that old Mr Linnell was at work with his violoncello to his son’s violin, and a faint penetrating perfume—or smell, according to taste—suggesting that Colonel Mellersh was indulging in a cigar.
Mrs Dean’s daughter was quite as quick in detecting these signs, and, raising her head and half closing her eyes, she swept gracefully into the house, unconscious of the fact that Richard Linnell drew back a little from the window on one side of the door, and that Colonel Mellersh showed his teeth as he lay back in his chair beside a small table, on which was a dealt-out pack of cards.
“I should like to poison that old woman,” said the Colonel, gathering together the cards.
“I wish Mr Barclay had let the first floor to some one else, Richard,” said a low pleasant voice from the back of the room.P-r-r-rm, Pr-um!
The speaker did not sayPr-r-rm, Pr-um! That sound was produced by an up and down draw of the bow across the fourth string of the old violoncello he held between his legs, letting the neck of the instrument with its pegs fall directly after into the hollow of his arm, as he picked up a cake of amber-hued transparent rosin from the edge of a music stand, and began thoughtfully to rub it up and down the horse-hair of the bow.
The speaker’s was a pleasant handsome face of a man approaching sixty; but though his hair was very grey, he was remarkably well-preserved. His well-cut rather effeminate face showed but few lines, and there was just a tinge of colour in his cheeks, such as good port wine might have produced: but in this case it was a consequence of a calm, peaceful, seaside life. He was evidently slight and tall, but bent, and in his blue eyes there was a dreamy look, while a curious twitch came over his face from time to time as if he suffered pain.
“It would have been better, father,” said Richard Linnell, turning over the leaves of a music-book with his violin bow, “but we can’t pick and choose whom one is to sit next in this world.”
“No, no, we can’t, my son.”
“And I don’t think that we ought to trouble ourselves about our neighbours, so long as they behave themselves decorously here.”
“No, no, my son,” said Linnell, senior, thoughtfully. “There’s a deal of wickedness in this world, but I suppose we mustn’t go about throwing stones.”
“I’m not going to, father, and I’m sure you wouldn’t throw one at a mad dog.”
“Don’t you think I would, Dick?” with a very sweet smile; and the eyes brightened and looked pleased. “Well, perhaps you are right. Poor brute! Why should I add to its agony?”
“So long as it didn’t bite, eh, father?”
“To be sure, Dick; so long as it didn’t bite. I should like to run through thatadagioagain, Dick, but not if you’re tired, my boy, not if you’re tired.”
“Tired? No!” cried the young man. “I could keep on all day.”
“That’s right. I’m glad I taught you. There’s something so soul-refreshing in a bit of music, especially when you are low-spirited.”
“Which you never are, now.”
“N-no, not often, say not often, say not often. It makes me a little low-spirited though about that woman and her mother, Dick.”
“I don’t see why it should.”
“But it does. Such a noble-looking beautiful creature, and such a hard, vulgar, worldly mother. Ah, Dick, beautiful women are to be pitied.”
“No, no: to be admired,” said Richard, laughing.
“Pitied, my boy, pitied,” said the elder, making curves in the air with his bow, while the fingers of his left hand—long, thin, white, delicate fingers—stopped the strings, as if he were playing the bars of some composition. “Your plain women scout their beautiful sisters, and trample upon them, but it is in ignorance. They don’t know the temptations that assail one who is born to good looks.”
“Why, father, this is quite a homily.”
“Ah, yes, Dick,” he said, laughing. “I ought to have been a preacher, I think, I am always prosing. Poor things—poor things! A lovely face is often a curse.”
“Oh, don’t say that.”
“But I do say it, Dick. It is a curse to that woman upstairs. Never marry a beautiful woman, Dick.”
“But you did, father.”
The old man started violently and changed colour, but recovered himself on the instant.
“Yes, yes. She was very beautiful. And she died, Dick; she died.”
He bent his head over his music, and Richard crossed and laid his hand upon his shoulder.
“I am sorry I spoke so thoughtlessly.”
“Oh, no, my boy; oh, no. It was quite right. She was a very beautiful woman. That miniature does not do her justice. But—but don’t marry a beautiful woman, Dick,” he continued, gazing wistfully into his son’s face. “Now thatadagio. It is a favourite bit of mine.”
Richard Linnell looked as if he would have liked to speak, and there was a troubled expression on his face as he thought of Claire Denville’s sweet candid eyes; but he shrank from any avowal. For how dare he, when she had given him but little thought, and—well, she was a beautiful woman, one of those against whom he had been warned.
He looked up and found his father watching him keenly, when both assumed ignorance of any other matter than theadagiomovement, the sweet notes of which, produced by the thrilling strings, floated out through the open window, and up and in that of the drawing-room floor overhead, where on a luxurious couch Mrs Dean had thrown herself, while her daughter was slowly pacing the room with the air of a tragedy queen.
“Buzz-buzz; boom-boom! Oh, those horrid fiddlers!” cried Mrs Dean, bouncing up and crossing to the fireplace, where she caught up the poker; but only to have her hand seized by her daughter, who took the poker away, and replaced it in the fender.
“What are you going to do?”
“What am I going to do? Why thump on the floor to make them quiet. Do you suppose I’m going to sit here and be driven mad with their scraping! This isn’t a playhouse!”
“You will do nothing of the sort, mother.”
“Oh, won’t I? Do you think I’m going to pay old Barclay all that money for these rooms, and not have any peace? Pray who are you talking to?”
“To you, mother,” said Cora sternly; and the stoutly-built, brazen-looking virago shrank from her daughter’s fierce gaze. “You must not forget yourself here, among all these respectable people.”
“And pray who’s going to? But I don’t know so much about your respectability. That Colonel, with his queer looks like the devil in ‘Dr Faustus,’ is no better than he should be.”
“The Colonel is a man of the world like the rest,” said Cora coldly.
“Yes, and a nice man of the world, too. And that old Linnell’s living apart from his wife. I know though—”
“Silence!”
“Now look here, Betsy, I won’t have you saysilenceto me like that. This here isn’t the stage, and we aren’t playing parts. Just you speak to me proper, madam.”
“Mother, I will not have you speak of Mr Linnell like that.”
“Ho, indeed! And why not, pray? Now, look here, Betsy,” she cried, holding up a warning finger, “I won’t have no nonsense there. I’m not a fool. I know the world. I’ve seen you sighing and looking soft when we’ve passed that young fellow downstairs.”
Cora’s eyes seemed to burn as she fixedly returned her mother’s look.
“Oh, you may stare, madam; but I can see more than you think. Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, making eyes at a poor, penniless fiddler, when you might—”
“I—I don’t want to quarrel, mother,” cried Cora, “but if you dare to speak to me again like that I’ll not be answerable for myself.”
“There!—there!—there! There’s gratitude!”
“Gratitude? Where should I have been but for Mr Linnell’s bravery, and which of the wretched dressed-up and titled dandies stirred to save me the other day? Richard Linnell is a brave, true-hearted man, too good to marry an actress.”
“She’s mad—she’s mad—she’s mad! There’s grace; and to her mother, too, who’s thought of nothing but getting her on in the world, and brought her forward, so that now she can live on the best of everything, in the handsomest of rooms, and keep her carriage. She flies in her poor mother’s face, and wants to get rid of her, I suppose. Oho—oho—oh!”
Mrs Dean plumped herself down into a gilded chair, and began to howl very softly.
“Don’t be a fool, mother,” said Cora. “I don’t want to quarrel, I tell you, so hold your tongue.”
“After the way I’ve brought her up, too,” howled Mrs Dean—softly, so that the sound should not be heard downstairs.
“After the way you’ve brought me up!” cried Cora fiercely. “Yes; brought me up to be sneered at by every lady I meet—brought me up so that I hate myself, and long sometimes to be one of the poor women we see knitting stockings on the beach.”
“Don’t be a fool, Cory, my handsome, beautiful gal,” cried Mrs Dean, suddenly starting up in her seat, dry-eyed and forgetful of her grief. “How can you be so stupid!”
“Stupid!” cried Cora bitterly. “Is it stupid to wish myself a woman that some true-hearted man could love, instead of looking forward to a life of acting.”
“Oh, how you do go on to be sure. I am surprised at you, Cory. I know what you’d say about the life as them leads as ar’n’t in the profession, but don’t you be a fool, Betsy. ‘Your face is your fortune, sir, she said,’ as the song says; working your fingers to the bone won’t keep you out of the workus. Don’t tell me. I know. I’ve known them as has tried it. Let them work as likes. I like a cutlet and a glass of fine sherry, and some well-made coffee with a noo-laid egg in it, and it ain’t to be got by folks as works their fingers to the bone.”
“And who wants to work their fingers to the bone, mother?” cried Cora, tearing off and flinging down her handsome feathered hat. “In every face I see there’s the look—‘You’re only one of the stage-players—a rogue and a vagabond.’ I want to lead some life for which I need not blush.”
“As she needn’t blush for! Oh, dear, oh, dear! When her father trod the boards and her mother was born on ’em! What a gal you are, Betsy,” said Mrs Dean, who professed high good humour now, and she rocked herself to and fro, and pressed her hands on her knees as she laughed. “Oh, I say, Cory, you are a one. You will act the injured fine lady in private life, my dear. Why, what a silly thing you are. Look at that hat you’ve chucked down. Didn’t it cost five guineas?”
“Yes, mother, it cost five guineas,” said Cora wearily.
“And you can have whatever you like. Oh, I say, my lovely gal, for you really are, you know, don’t get into these silly fits. It’s such stuff. Why, who knows what may happen? You may be right up atop of the tree yet, and how about yon folks as passes you by now? Why, they’ll all be as civil and friendly as can be. There, there, come and kiss me, ducky, we mustn’t quarrel, must we? I’ve got my eyes open for you, so don’t, don’t, there’s a dear. I know what these things means—don’t go chucking yourself at that young Linnell’s head.”
“Let Mr Linnell alone, mother.”
“But I can’t, my luvvy; I know too well what these things mean. Why, there was Julia Jennings as was at the Lane—it was just afore you was born. There was a dook and a couple of lords, and carridges and horses, and livery suvvants, and as many jewels and dymonds and dresses as she liked to order; and if she didn’t kick ’em all over and marry a shopman, and lived poor ever after. Now do, my luvvy, be advised by me. I know what the world is, and—Gracious goodness! there’s somebody coming up the stairs.”
Mrs Dean threw herself into an attitude meant to be easy, and Cora smoothed her knitted brows as there was a knock at the door, and, after a loud “Come in,” a neat-looking maid entered.
“Mr Barclay, please, ma’am.”
“Show him up, Jane,” said Mrs Dean sharply; and then, as the door closed, “The old rip’s come after his rent. How precious sharp he is.”
“Morning, ladies,” said Barclay. “I heard you were in. Glad to see you are no worse for your accident the other day.”
He glanced at Cora, who bowed rather stiffly, and said “Not at all.”
“I can’t say that, Mr Barclay. I’m a bit shook; but, as I said to my daughter, I wasn’t going to show the white feather, and the ponies go lovely now.”
“Well, I’m glad of that.”
“And I’m so much obliged to you for helping of me. Do you know, it was just like a scene in a piece we—er—saw once at the Lane.”
“Oh, it was nothing ma’am, what I did. Miss Dean, there, she took off all the honours. No cold, I hope.”
Cora did not answer.
“Plucky fellow, young Linnell; but poor, you know, poor.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Mrs Dean maliciously. “I was thinking of sending him ten guineas.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, ma’am,” said Barclay.
“Oh, well, I must saythankyesome other way. Very kind of you to call. I said to my daughter, ‘There’s Mr Barclay come for his rent,’ but I was wrong.”
“Not you, ma’am,” said Barclay, whose eyes were rapidly taking in the state of the room. “Business is business, you know,” and he took another glance at the rich furniture and handsome mirrors of the place.
“Oh, it’s all right, Mr Barclay. We’re taking the greatest care of it all, and your rent’s all ready for you, and always will be, of course.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, ma’am. I’ve brought you a little receipt. Saves trouble. Pen and ink not always ready. I keep to my days. So much pleasanter for everybody. Nice rooms, ain’t they?” he added, turning to Cora.
“Yes, Mr Barclay, the rooms are very nice,” she said coldly and thoughtfully.
“Anything the matter with her?” said Mr Barclay, leaning forward to Mrs Dean, and taking the money she handed in exchange for a receipt. “Not in love, is she?”
Mrs Dean and her visitor exchanged glances, and smiled as Cora rose and walked to the window to gaze out at the sea, merely turning her head to bow distantly when the landlord rose to leave.
“I’m a regular scoundrel, ’pon my soul I am,” said Josiah Barclay, rubbing his nose with the edge of a memorandum book; “but they pay very handsomely, and if I were to refuse to let a part of a house that I furnish on purpose for letting, without having the highest moral certificates of character with the people who want the rooms, I’m afraid I should never let them at all. Bah! it’s no business of mine.”
He went back to the front door and knocked, to be shown in directly after to where Colonel Mellersh was sitting back in his chair, having evidently just thrown down the pack of cards.
“Morning, Shylock,” he said, showing his white teeth. “Want your pound of flesh again?”
“No, thank ye, Colonel; rather have the ducats. I say, though, I wish you wouldn’t call me Shylock. I’m not one of the chosen, you know.”
“That I’ll take oath you’re not, Barclay,” said the Colonel, looking at his visitor with a very amused smile. “Your future is thoroughly assured. I’m sorry for you, Barclay, for I don’t think you’re the worst scoundrel that ever breathed.”
“I say, you know, Colonel, this is too bad, you know. Come, come, come.”
“Oh, I always speak plainly to you, Barclay. Let me see; can you let me have a hundred?”
“A hundred, Colonel?” said the other, looking up sharply; “well, yes, I think I can.”
“Ah, well, I don’t want it, Barclay. I know you’d be only too glad to get a good hold of me.”
“Wrong, Colonel, wrong,” said Barclay, chuckling as he glanced at the cards. “You do me too much good for that.”
“Do I?” said the Colonel, smiling in a peculiarly cynical way. “Well, perhaps I do influence your market a little. There,” he said, taking some notes from his little pocket-book, and handing them to his visitor, “now we are free once more.”
“Thankye, Colonel, thankye. You’re a capital tenant. I say, by the way, after all these years, I shouldn’t like to do anything to annoy you: I hope you don’t mind the actors upstairs.”
“No,” said the Colonel, staring at him.
“Because if you did complain, and were not satisfied, I’d make a change, you know.”
“Don’t trouble the women for my sake,” said the Colonel gruffly. “Look here, Barclay, how would you play this hand?”
He took up the cards as he spoke, shuffled them with an easy, graceful movement, the pieces of pasteboard flying rapidly through his hands, before dealing them lightly out upon the table, face upwards, and selecting four thirteens.
“Now,” he said, “look here. Your partner holds two trumps—six, nine; your adversaries right and left have knave and ace; B on your right leads trumps—what would you do?”
Barclay knit his brow and took the Colonel’s hand, gazing from one to the other thoughtfully, and then, without a word, played the hand, the Colonel selecting those cards that would be played by the others till the hand was half through, when Barclay hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to throw away a trick.
“Why did you do that?” said the Colonel sharply.
“Because by losing that I should get the next two.”
“Exactly!” cried the Colonel with his eyes flashing. “That endorses my opinion. Barclay, I shan’t play against you if I can help myself. Money-lending seems to sharpen the wits wonderfully. What a clever old fox you are!”
“One’s obliged to be clever now a days, Colonel, if one wants to get on. Well, I must go. I have to see your neighbours. Rents are very bad to get in.”
“I suppose so,” said the Colonel drily. “Good-morning.”
“I wonder what he makes a year by his play,” said Barclay to himself, as he went back to the front door to knock for the third time. “I believe he plays square, too, but he has a wonderful head, and he’s practising night and day. Now for old Linnell.”
He was shown into Mr Linnell’s room the next minute, to find that he was expected, and that he was gravely and courteously received, and his rent paid, so that there was nothing for him to do but say “Good-morning.” But Josiah Barclay’s conscience was a little uneasy, and in spite of the fact that his tenant was far from being a rich man, there was something in his grave refined manner that won his respect.
“Wish you’d come and see us sometimes, Mr Linnell, just in a friendly way, you know. Chop and glass o’ sherry with Mrs Barclay and me; and you’d join us too, Mr Richard, eh?”
“Thank you, Mr Barclay, no,” said Richard’s father; “I never go out. Richard, my son, here, would, I dare say, accept your invitation.”
“Oh, but can’t you too, eh? Look here, you know, you’re a man who loves bits of old china, and I’ve quite a lot. Really good. Come: when shall it be?”
“Don’t press me now, Mr Barclay,” said his tenant gravely. “Perhaps some other time.”
“Then you’re offended, Mr Linnell. You’re a bit hipped because of the other lodgers, you know.”
“Mr Barclay, I have made no complaints,” said the elder Linnell quietly.
“No, you’ve made no complaints, but you show it in your way, don’t you see. It wasn’t for me to be too strict in my inquiries about people, Mr Linnell. I’m sorry I offended you; but what can I do?”
“Mr Barclay has a perfect right to do what he pleases with his own house,” replied the elder Linnell with dignity. “Good-day.”
“Now I could buy that man up a hundred times over,” grumbled Barclay as he walked away, richer by many pounds than when he started on his journey that morning; “but he always seems to set me down; to look upon me with contempt; and young Richard is as high and mighty as can be. Ah, well, wait a bit!—‘Can you oblige me with fifty pounds, Mr Barclay, on my note of hand?’—and then p’raps they’ll be more civil.
“Things ain’t pleasant though, just now. One house made notorious by a murder, and me letting a couple of actresses lodge in another. Well, they pay regular, and I dare say she’ll make a good match somewhere before long; but I’m afraid, when the old lady gets to know they’re stage people, there’ll be a bit of a breeze.”
Volume One—Chapter Twenty One.Dick Catches Shrimps.There was quite a little crowd at the end of the pier to see Fisherman Dick and some others busy with boathooks searching for the fragments of Cora Dean’s pony carriage, and for want of something better to stare at, the fastening of a rope to first one pair of wheels and then to the other, and the hauling ashore, formed thrilling incidents.Two rich carriage-cloaks were cast ashore by the tide, miles away, and the rug was found right under the pier, but there were several articles still missing. Cora’s reticule, containing her purse and cut-glass scent-bottle; a little carriage-clock used by Mrs Dean, who was always very particular about the lapse of time, and that lady’s reticule and purse.It was Fisherman Dick’s special task to search for them when the tide was low, and this he did by going to work as a setter does in a field, quartering the ground and hunting it all over to and fro.But Fisherman Dick did his work with a shrimping-net, and one day he took home the little carriage-clock and showed it to his wife.Another day he found Mrs Dean’s reticule, and caught a great many shrimps as well.Then the tide did not serve for several days, and he had to wait, shaking his head and telling Mrs Miggles he was afraid the sand would have covered everything.“Then give it up,” said Mrs Miggles, who was trying to sew with the little girl in her lap, but was prevented by the tiny thing making dashes at her broad-brimmed silver spectacles, which it kept taking off and flourishing in one little plump hand.“Well done, little ’un,” cried the fisherman, grinning. “No, missus, I don’t like being beat.”He went off, looking very serious, with his net over one shoulder, the creel over the other, and after going to and fro patiently waist and often breast deep, he was successful in finding Cora Dean’s reticule, with its purse and cut-glass bottle; and that night he went home amply rewarded, Cora having been very generous, and Mrs Dean saying several times over that she wouldn’t have believed that a great rough man like that would have been so honest.“I declare, Betsy, he’s just like a man in a play—the good man who finds the treasure and gives it up. Why, he might have kep’ your puss, and my puss too, and nobody been a bit the wiser.”That was all that was missing; but every day for a week, during the times that the tide was low, Fisherman Dick was busy, pushing his shrimping-net before him, and stopping every now and then to raise it, throw out the rubbish, and transfer the few shrimps he caught to his creel.It was not a good place for shrimping—it was too deep; but he kept on with his laborious task, wading out as far as ever he could go; and more than one of his fellow-mermen grinned at his empty creel.“Why don’t you try the shallows, Dick?” said one of the blue-jerseyed fellows, who seemed to be trying to grow a hump on his back by leaning over the rail at the edge of the cliff.“’Cause I like to try the deeps,” growled Fisherman Dick.“Ah, you want to make your fortune too quick, my lad; that’s plain.”Dick winked, and went home; and the next day he winked, and went out shrimping again, and caught very few, and went home again, put on his dry clothes, and said:“Give us the babby.”Mrs Miggles gave him the “babby,” and Dick took her and nursed her, smiling down at the little thing as she climbed up his chest, and tangled her little fingers in his great beard; while Mrs Miggles gave the few shrimps a pick over and a shake up before she consigned the hopping unfortunates to the boiling bath that should turn them from blackish grey to red.“What is it, old man?” said Mrs Miggles; “sperrits?”Fisherman Dick shook his head, and began to sing gruffly to the child about a “galliant” maiden who went to sea in search of her true “lovy-er along of a British crew.”“What is it, then—lace?”Fisherman Dick shook his head again, and bellowed out the word “crew,” the little child looking at him wonderingly, but not in the least alarmed.“I never did see such an oyster as you are, old man,” said Mrs Miggles. “You’re the closest chap in the place.”“Ay!” said Fisherman Dick; and he went on with his song.He went shrimping off the end of the pier for the delectation of the mincing crowd of promenaders twice more. Lord Carboro’ saw him; so did Major Rockley and Sir Harry Payne. Sir Matthew Bray was too busy dancing attendance upon Lady Drelincourt to pay any attention.The Master of the Ceremonies saw him too, as he bowed to one, smiled upon a second, and took snuff with a third; and several times, as he watched the fisherman wading out there, he followed his movements attentively, and appeared to be gazing without his mask of artificiality.The man’s calm, dreamy ways seemed to have an attraction, as if he were wishing that he could change places with him, and lead so simple and peaceful a life. And as he watched him, very far out now, Dick raised his net, emptied it, shook it with his back to the people, and then began to wade in quite another direction, going back no more to the ground off the pier.The Master of the Ceremonies did not look himself that day, and twice over he found himself on the edge of the pier gazing out to sea, where everything seemed so peaceful and still.There was a buzz of voices going on about him, but he heard nothing, till all at once a voice, quite familiar to him, exclaimed sharply:“Well, what is it?”“Message from Mr Barclay, sir.”“Well?”“I took your note, sir, and he’ll be glad to see you to-morrow morning at twelve.”“That will do. Now take the other.”Stuart Denville could not restrain himself as he heard those voices just behind, and it was as if some power had turned him sharply round to see Major Rockley in conversation with one of the private dragoons of his regiment.The man had delivered his message to his master, and then turned stiffly to go, coming face to face with Denville, whose whole manner changed. He turned deadly pale, of an unwholesome pallor, and then the blood seemed to flush to his face and head. His eyes flashed and his lips parted as if to speak, but the dragoon saluted, turned upon his heel, and strode away.“Anything the matter, Denville?” said the Major, who had seen something of the encounter.“Matter, matter,” said the old man hoarsely, and he now began to tremble violently. “No—no,—a little faint. You’ll pardon me,—a chair,—a—”The old man would have fallen, but the Major caught his arm and helped him to a seat, where a crowd of fashionables surrounded him, and did all they possibly could to prevent his recovery from his fit by keeping away every breath of air, and thrusting at him bottles of salts, vinaigrettes, and scents of every fashionable kind.“What’s the matter with the old fellow?” said the Major, as he twirled his moustache. “Could he have known about the note? Impossible; and if he had known, why should he turn faint? Bah! Absurd! The heat. He’s little better than a shadow, after all.”
There was quite a little crowd at the end of the pier to see Fisherman Dick and some others busy with boathooks searching for the fragments of Cora Dean’s pony carriage, and for want of something better to stare at, the fastening of a rope to first one pair of wheels and then to the other, and the hauling ashore, formed thrilling incidents.
Two rich carriage-cloaks were cast ashore by the tide, miles away, and the rug was found right under the pier, but there were several articles still missing. Cora’s reticule, containing her purse and cut-glass scent-bottle; a little carriage-clock used by Mrs Dean, who was always very particular about the lapse of time, and that lady’s reticule and purse.
It was Fisherman Dick’s special task to search for them when the tide was low, and this he did by going to work as a setter does in a field, quartering the ground and hunting it all over to and fro.
But Fisherman Dick did his work with a shrimping-net, and one day he took home the little carriage-clock and showed it to his wife.
Another day he found Mrs Dean’s reticule, and caught a great many shrimps as well.
Then the tide did not serve for several days, and he had to wait, shaking his head and telling Mrs Miggles he was afraid the sand would have covered everything.
“Then give it up,” said Mrs Miggles, who was trying to sew with the little girl in her lap, but was prevented by the tiny thing making dashes at her broad-brimmed silver spectacles, which it kept taking off and flourishing in one little plump hand.
“Well done, little ’un,” cried the fisherman, grinning. “No, missus, I don’t like being beat.”
He went off, looking very serious, with his net over one shoulder, the creel over the other, and after going to and fro patiently waist and often breast deep, he was successful in finding Cora Dean’s reticule, with its purse and cut-glass bottle; and that night he went home amply rewarded, Cora having been very generous, and Mrs Dean saying several times over that she wouldn’t have believed that a great rough man like that would have been so honest.
“I declare, Betsy, he’s just like a man in a play—the good man who finds the treasure and gives it up. Why, he might have kep’ your puss, and my puss too, and nobody been a bit the wiser.”
That was all that was missing; but every day for a week, during the times that the tide was low, Fisherman Dick was busy, pushing his shrimping-net before him, and stopping every now and then to raise it, throw out the rubbish, and transfer the few shrimps he caught to his creel.
It was not a good place for shrimping—it was too deep; but he kept on with his laborious task, wading out as far as ever he could go; and more than one of his fellow-mermen grinned at his empty creel.
“Why don’t you try the shallows, Dick?” said one of the blue-jerseyed fellows, who seemed to be trying to grow a hump on his back by leaning over the rail at the edge of the cliff.
“’Cause I like to try the deeps,” growled Fisherman Dick.
“Ah, you want to make your fortune too quick, my lad; that’s plain.”
Dick winked, and went home; and the next day he winked, and went out shrimping again, and caught very few, and went home again, put on his dry clothes, and said:
“Give us the babby.”
Mrs Miggles gave him the “babby,” and Dick took her and nursed her, smiling down at the little thing as she climbed up his chest, and tangled her little fingers in his great beard; while Mrs Miggles gave the few shrimps a pick over and a shake up before she consigned the hopping unfortunates to the boiling bath that should turn them from blackish grey to red.
“What is it, old man?” said Mrs Miggles; “sperrits?”
Fisherman Dick shook his head, and began to sing gruffly to the child about a “galliant” maiden who went to sea in search of her true “lovy-er along of a British crew.”
“What is it, then—lace?”
Fisherman Dick shook his head again, and bellowed out the word “crew,” the little child looking at him wonderingly, but not in the least alarmed.
“I never did see such an oyster as you are, old man,” said Mrs Miggles. “You’re the closest chap in the place.”
“Ay!” said Fisherman Dick; and he went on with his song.
He went shrimping off the end of the pier for the delectation of the mincing crowd of promenaders twice more. Lord Carboro’ saw him; so did Major Rockley and Sir Harry Payne. Sir Matthew Bray was too busy dancing attendance upon Lady Drelincourt to pay any attention.
The Master of the Ceremonies saw him too, as he bowed to one, smiled upon a second, and took snuff with a third; and several times, as he watched the fisherman wading out there, he followed his movements attentively, and appeared to be gazing without his mask of artificiality.
The man’s calm, dreamy ways seemed to have an attraction, as if he were wishing that he could change places with him, and lead so simple and peaceful a life. And as he watched him, very far out now, Dick raised his net, emptied it, shook it with his back to the people, and then began to wade in quite another direction, going back no more to the ground off the pier.
The Master of the Ceremonies did not look himself that day, and twice over he found himself on the edge of the pier gazing out to sea, where everything seemed so peaceful and still.
There was a buzz of voices going on about him, but he heard nothing, till all at once a voice, quite familiar to him, exclaimed sharply:
“Well, what is it?”
“Message from Mr Barclay, sir.”
“Well?”
“I took your note, sir, and he’ll be glad to see you to-morrow morning at twelve.”
“That will do. Now take the other.”
Stuart Denville could not restrain himself as he heard those voices just behind, and it was as if some power had turned him sharply round to see Major Rockley in conversation with one of the private dragoons of his regiment.
The man had delivered his message to his master, and then turned stiffly to go, coming face to face with Denville, whose whole manner changed. He turned deadly pale, of an unwholesome pallor, and then the blood seemed to flush to his face and head. His eyes flashed and his lips parted as if to speak, but the dragoon saluted, turned upon his heel, and strode away.
“Anything the matter, Denville?” said the Major, who had seen something of the encounter.
“Matter, matter,” said the old man hoarsely, and he now began to tremble violently. “No—no,—a little faint. You’ll pardon me,—a chair,—a—”
The old man would have fallen, but the Major caught his arm and helped him to a seat, where a crowd of fashionables surrounded him, and did all they possibly could to prevent his recovery from his fit by keeping away every breath of air, and thrusting at him bottles of salts, vinaigrettes, and scents of every fashionable kind.
“What’s the matter with the old fellow?” said the Major, as he twirled his moustache. “Could he have known about the note? Impossible; and if he had known, why should he turn faint? Bah! Absurd! The heat. He’s little better than a shadow, after all.”
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Two.A Surreptitious Visitor.“Major Rockley’s servant to see you, miss.”Claire started from her seat and looked at Footman Isaac with a troubled expression that was full of shame and dread.She dropped her eyes on the instant as she thought of her position.It was four o’clock, and the promenade on cliff and pier in full swing. Her father would not be back for two hours, Morton was away somewhere, and it was so dreadful—so degrading—to be obliged to see her brother, the prodigal, in the servants’ part of the house.For herself she would not have cared, but it was lowering her brother; and, trying to be calm and firm, she said:“Show him in here, Isaac.”“In here, miss?”“Yes.”“Please ma’am, master said—”“Show him in here, Isaac,” said Claire, drawing herself up with her eyes flashing, and the colour returning to her cheeks.The footman backed out quickly, and directly after there was the clink of spurs, and a heavy tread. Then the door opened and closed, and Major Hockley’s servant, James Bell, otherwise Fred Denville, strode into the room; and Isaac’s retreating steps were heard.“Fred!” cried Claire, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing the handsome bronzed face again and again.“My darling girl!” he cried, holding her tightly to his breast, while his face lit up as he returned her caresses.“Oh, Fred!” she said, as she laid her hands then upon his shoulders and gazed at him at arm’s length, “you’ve been drinking.”“One half-pint of ale. That’s all: upon my soul,” he said. “I say, I wish it were not wicked to commit murder.”If he had by some blow paralysed her he could not have produced a greater change in her aspect, for her eyes grew wild and the colour faded out of her cheeks and lips.“Don’t look like that,” he said, smiling. “I shan’t do it—at least, not while I’m sober; but I should like to wring that supercilious scoundrel’s neck. He looks down upon me in a way that is quite comical.”“Why did you come, dear?” said Claire sadly. “Oh, Fred, if I could but buy you out, so that you could begin life again.”“No good, my dear little girl,” he said tenderly. “There’s something wrong in my works. I’ve no stability, and I should only go wrong again.”“But, if you would try, Fred.”“Try, my pet!” he said fiercely; “Heaven knows how I did try, but the drink was too much for me. If we had been brought up to some honest way of making a living, and away from this sham, I might have been different, but it drove me to drink, and I never had any self-command. I’m best where I am; obliged to be sober as the Major’s servant.”There was a contemptuous look in his eyes as he said this last.“And that makes it so much worse,” sighed Claire with a sad smile. “If you were only the King’s servant—a soldier—I would not so much mind.”“Perhaps it is best as it is,” he said sternly.“Don’t say that, Fred dear.”“But I do say it, girl. If I had been brought up differently—Bah! I didn’t come here to grumble about the old man.”“No, no, pray, pray don’t. And, Fred dear, you must not stop. Do you want a little money?”“Yes!” he cried eagerly. “No! Curse it all, girl, I wish you would not tempt me. So you are not glad to see me?”“Indeed, yes, Fred; but you must not stay. If our father were to return there would be such a scene.”“He will not. He is on the pier, and won’t be back these two hours. Where’s Morton?”“Out, dear.”“Then we are all right. Did you expect me?”“No, dear. Let me make you some tea.”“No; stop here. Didn’t you expect this?”He drew a note from his breast.“That note? No, dear. Who is it from?”Fred Denville looked his sister searchingly in the face, and its innocent candid expression satisfied him, and he drew a sigh full of relief.“If it had been May who looked at me like that, I should have said she was telling me a lie.”“Oh, Fred!”“Bah! You know it’s true. Little wax-doll imp. But I believe you, Claire. Fate’s playing us strange tricks. I am James Bell, Major Rockley’s servant, and he trusts me with his commissions. This is abillet-doux—a love-letter—to my sister, which my master sends, and I am to wait for an answer.”Claire drew herself up, and as her brother saw the blood mantle in her face, and the haughty, angry look in her eyes as she took the letter and tore it to pieces, he, too, drew himself up, and there was a proud air in his aspect.“There is no answer to Major Rockley’s letter,” she said coldly. “How dare he write to me!”“Claire, old girl, I must hug you,” cried the dragoon. “By George! I feel as if I were not ashamed of the name of Denville after all. I was going to bully you and tell you that my superior officer is as big a scoundrel as ever breathed, and that if you carried on with him I’d shoot you. Now, bully me, my pet, and tell your prodigal drunken dragoon of a brother that he ought to be ashamed of himself for even thinking such a thing. I won’t shrink.”“My dear brother,” she said tenderly, as she placed her hands in his.“My dear sister,” he said softly, as he kissed her little white hands in turn, “I need not warn and try to teach you, for I feel that I might come to you for help if I could learn. There—there. Some day you’ll marry some good fellow.”She shook her head.“Yes, you will,” he said. “Richard Linnell, perhaps. Don’t let the old man worry you into such a match as May’s.”“I shall never marry,” said Claire, in a low strange voice; “never.”“Yes, you will,” he said, smiling; “but what you have to guard against is not the gallantries of the contemptible puppies who haunt this place, but some big match that—Ah! Too late!”He caught a glimpse of his father’s figure passing the window, and made for the door, but it was only to stand face to face with the old man, who came in hastily, haggard, and wild of eye.Fred Denville drew back into the room as his father staggered in, and then, as the door swung to and fastened itself, there was a terrible silence, and Claire looked on speechless for the moment, as she saw her brother draw himself up, military fashion, while her father’s face changed in a way that was horrible to behold.He looked ten years older. His eyes started; his jaw fell, and his hands trembled as he raised them, with the thick cane hanging from one wrist.He tried to speak, but the words would not come for a few moments.At last his speech seemed to return, and, in a voice full of rage, hate, and horror combined, he cried furiously:“You here!—fiend!—wretch!—villain!”“Oh, father!” cried Claire, darting to his side.“Hush, Claire! Let him speak,” said Fred.“Was it not enough that I forbade you the house before; but, now—to come—to dare—villain!—wretch!—coldblooded, miserable wretch! You are no son of mine. Out of my sight! Curse you! I curse you with all the bitterness that—”“Father! father!” cried Claire, in horrified tones, as she threw herself between them; but, in his rage, the old man struck her across the face with his arm, sending her tottering back.“Oh, this is too much,” cried Fred, dropping his stolid manner. “You cowardly—”“Cowardly! Ha! ha! ha! Cowardly!” screamed the old man, catching at his stick. “You say that—you?”As Fred strode towards him, the old man struck him with his cane, a sharp well-directed blow across the left ear, and, stung to madness by the pain, the tall strong man caught the frail-looking old beau by the throat and bore him back into a chair, holding him with one hand while his other was clenched and raised to strike.
“Major Rockley’s servant to see you, miss.”
Claire started from her seat and looked at Footman Isaac with a troubled expression that was full of shame and dread.
She dropped her eyes on the instant as she thought of her position.
It was four o’clock, and the promenade on cliff and pier in full swing. Her father would not be back for two hours, Morton was away somewhere, and it was so dreadful—so degrading—to be obliged to see her brother, the prodigal, in the servants’ part of the house.
For herself she would not have cared, but it was lowering her brother; and, trying to be calm and firm, she said:
“Show him in here, Isaac.”
“In here, miss?”
“Yes.”
“Please ma’am, master said—”
“Show him in here, Isaac,” said Claire, drawing herself up with her eyes flashing, and the colour returning to her cheeks.
The footman backed out quickly, and directly after there was the clink of spurs, and a heavy tread. Then the door opened and closed, and Major Hockley’s servant, James Bell, otherwise Fred Denville, strode into the room; and Isaac’s retreating steps were heard.
“Fred!” cried Claire, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing the handsome bronzed face again and again.
“My darling girl!” he cried, holding her tightly to his breast, while his face lit up as he returned her caresses.
“Oh, Fred!” she said, as she laid her hands then upon his shoulders and gazed at him at arm’s length, “you’ve been drinking.”
“One half-pint of ale. That’s all: upon my soul,” he said. “I say, I wish it were not wicked to commit murder.”
If he had by some blow paralysed her he could not have produced a greater change in her aspect, for her eyes grew wild and the colour faded out of her cheeks and lips.
“Don’t look like that,” he said, smiling. “I shan’t do it—at least, not while I’m sober; but I should like to wring that supercilious scoundrel’s neck. He looks down upon me in a way that is quite comical.”
“Why did you come, dear?” said Claire sadly. “Oh, Fred, if I could but buy you out, so that you could begin life again.”
“No good, my dear little girl,” he said tenderly. “There’s something wrong in my works. I’ve no stability, and I should only go wrong again.”
“But, if you would try, Fred.”
“Try, my pet!” he said fiercely; “Heaven knows how I did try, but the drink was too much for me. If we had been brought up to some honest way of making a living, and away from this sham, I might have been different, but it drove me to drink, and I never had any self-command. I’m best where I am; obliged to be sober as the Major’s servant.”
There was a contemptuous look in his eyes as he said this last.
“And that makes it so much worse,” sighed Claire with a sad smile. “If you were only the King’s servant—a soldier—I would not so much mind.”
“Perhaps it is best as it is,” he said sternly.
“Don’t say that, Fred dear.”
“But I do say it, girl. If I had been brought up differently—Bah! I didn’t come here to grumble about the old man.”
“No, no, pray, pray don’t. And, Fred dear, you must not stop. Do you want a little money?”
“Yes!” he cried eagerly. “No! Curse it all, girl, I wish you would not tempt me. So you are not glad to see me?”
“Indeed, yes, Fred; but you must not stay. If our father were to return there would be such a scene.”
“He will not. He is on the pier, and won’t be back these two hours. Where’s Morton?”
“Out, dear.”
“Then we are all right. Did you expect me?”
“No, dear. Let me make you some tea.”
“No; stop here. Didn’t you expect this?”
He drew a note from his breast.
“That note? No, dear. Who is it from?”
Fred Denville looked his sister searchingly in the face, and its innocent candid expression satisfied him, and he drew a sigh full of relief.
“If it had been May who looked at me like that, I should have said she was telling me a lie.”
“Oh, Fred!”
“Bah! You know it’s true. Little wax-doll imp. But I believe you, Claire. Fate’s playing us strange tricks. I am James Bell, Major Rockley’s servant, and he trusts me with his commissions. This is abillet-doux—a love-letter—to my sister, which my master sends, and I am to wait for an answer.”
Claire drew herself up, and as her brother saw the blood mantle in her face, and the haughty, angry look in her eyes as she took the letter and tore it to pieces, he, too, drew himself up, and there was a proud air in his aspect.
“There is no answer to Major Rockley’s letter,” she said coldly. “How dare he write to me!”
“Claire, old girl, I must hug you,” cried the dragoon. “By George! I feel as if I were not ashamed of the name of Denville after all. I was going to bully you and tell you that my superior officer is as big a scoundrel as ever breathed, and that if you carried on with him I’d shoot you. Now, bully me, my pet, and tell your prodigal drunken dragoon of a brother that he ought to be ashamed of himself for even thinking such a thing. I won’t shrink.”
“My dear brother,” she said tenderly, as she placed her hands in his.
“My dear sister,” he said softly, as he kissed her little white hands in turn, “I need not warn and try to teach you, for I feel that I might come to you for help if I could learn. There—there. Some day you’ll marry some good fellow.”
She shook her head.
“Yes, you will,” he said. “Richard Linnell, perhaps. Don’t let the old man worry you into such a match as May’s.”
“I shall never marry,” said Claire, in a low strange voice; “never.”
“Yes, you will,” he said, smiling; “but what you have to guard against is not the gallantries of the contemptible puppies who haunt this place, but some big match that—Ah! Too late!”
He caught a glimpse of his father’s figure passing the window, and made for the door, but it was only to stand face to face with the old man, who came in hastily, haggard, and wild of eye.
Fred Denville drew back into the room as his father staggered in, and then, as the door swung to and fastened itself, there was a terrible silence, and Claire looked on speechless for the moment, as she saw her brother draw himself up, military fashion, while her father’s face changed in a way that was horrible to behold.
He looked ten years older. His eyes started; his jaw fell, and his hands trembled as he raised them, with the thick cane hanging from one wrist.
He tried to speak, but the words would not come for a few moments.
At last his speech seemed to return, and, in a voice full of rage, hate, and horror combined, he cried furiously:
“You here!—fiend!—wretch!—villain!”
“Oh, father!” cried Claire, darting to his side.
“Hush, Claire! Let him speak,” said Fred.
“Was it not enough that I forbade you the house before; but, now—to come—to dare—villain!—wretch!—coldblooded, miserable wretch! You are no son of mine. Out of my sight! Curse you! I curse you with all the bitterness that—”
“Father! father!” cried Claire, in horrified tones, as she threw herself between them; but, in his rage, the old man struck her across the face with his arm, sending her tottering back.
“Oh, this is too much,” cried Fred, dropping his stolid manner. “You cowardly—”
“Cowardly! Ha! ha! ha! Cowardly!” screamed the old man, catching at his stick. “You say that—you?”
As Fred strode towards him, the old man struck him with his cane, a sharp well-directed blow across the left ear, and, stung to madness by the pain, the tall strong man caught the frail-looking old beau by the throat and bore him back into a chair, holding him with one hand while his other was clenched and raised to strike.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Three.Father and Daughter.“Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life,” cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturdy soldier who held him back.But it wanted not Claire’s hand upon Fred Denville’s arm to stay the blow. The passionate rage fled as swiftly as it had flashed up, and he tore himself away.“You shouldn’t have struck me,” he cried in a voice full of anguish. “I couldn’t master myself. You struck her—the best and truest girl who ever breathed; and I’d rather be what I am—scamp, drunkard, common soldier, and have struck you down, than you, who gave that poor girl a cowardly blow. Claire—my girl—God bless you! I can come here no more.”He caught her wildly in his arms, kissed her passionately, and then literally staggered out of the house, and they saw him reel by the window.There was again a terrible silence in that room, where the old man, looking feeble and strange now, lay back in the chair where he had been thrown, staring wildly straight before him as Claire sank upon the carpet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing to herself.“And this is home! And this is home!”She tried to restrain her tears, but they burst forth with sobs more wild and uncontrolled; and at last they had their effect upon the old man, whose wild stare passed off, and, rising painfully in his seat, he glared at the door and shuddered.“How dare he come!” he muttered. “How dare he touch her! How—”He stopped as he turned his eyes upon where Claire crouched, as if he had suddenly become aware of her presence, and his face softened into a piteous yearning look as he stretched out his hands towards her, and then slowly rose to his feet.“I struck her,” he muttered, “I struck her. My child—my darling! I—I—Claire—Claire—”His voice was very low as he slowly sank upon his knees, and softly laid one hand upon her dress, raising it to his lips and kissing it with a curiously strange abasement in his manner.Claire did not move nor seem to hear him, and he crept nearer to her and timidly laid his hand upon her head.He snatched it away directly, and knelt there gazing at her wildly, for she shuddered, shrank from him, and, starting to her feet, backed towards the door with such a look of repulsion in her face that the old man clasped his hands together, and his lips parted as if to cry to her for mercy.But no sound left them, and for a full minute they remained gazing the one at the other. Then, with a heartrending sob, Claire drew open the door and hurried from the room.“What shall I do? What shall I do?” groaned Denville as he rose heavily to his feet. “It is too hard to bear. Better sleep—at once and for ever.”He sank into his chair with his hands clasped and his elbows resting upon his knees, and he bent lower and lower, as if borne down by the weight of his sorrow; and thus he remained as the minutes glided by, till, hearing a step at last, and the jingle of glass, he rose quickly, smoothed his care-marked face, and thrusting his hand into his breast, began to pace the room, catching up hat and stick, and half closing his eyes, as if in deep thought.It was a good bit of acting, for when Isaac entered with a tray to lay the dinner cloth, and glanced quickly at his master, it was to see him calm and apparently buried in some plan, with not the slightest trace of domestic care upon his well-masked face.“Mr Morton at home, Isaac?” he said, with a slightly-affected drawl.“No, sir; been out hours.”“Not gone fishing, Isaac?”“No, sir; I think Mr Morton’s gone up to the barracks, sir. Said he should be back to dinner, sir.”“That is right, Isaac. That is right. I think I will go for a little promenade before dinner myself.”“He’s a rum ’un,” muttered the footman as he stood behind the curtain on one side of the window; “anyone would think we were all as happy as the day’s long here, when all the time the place is chock full of horrors, and if I was to speak—”Isaac did not finish his sentence, but remained watching the Master of the Ceremonies with his careful mincing step till he was out of sight, when the footman turned from the window to stand tapping the dining-table with his finger tips.“If I was to go, there’d be a regular wreck, and I shouldn’t get a penny of my back wages. If I stay, he may get them two well married, and then there’d be money in the house. Better stay. Lor’, if people only knew all I could tell ’em about this house, and the scraping, and putting off bills, and the troubles with Miss May and the two boys, and—”Isaac drew a long breath and turned rather white.“I feel sometimes as if I ought to make a clean breast of it, but I don’t like to. He isn’t such a bad sort, when you come to know him, but that—ugh!”He shuddered, and began to rattle the knives and forks upon the table, giving one a rub now and then on his shabby livery.“It’s a puzzler,” he said, stopping short, after breathing in a glass, and giving it a rub with a cloth. “Some day, I suppose, there’ll be a difference, and he’ll be flush of money. I suppose he daren’t start yet. Suppose I—No; that wouldn’t do. He’ll pay all the back, then, and I might—”Isaac shuddered again, and muttered to himself in a very mysterious way. Then, all at once:“Why, I might cry halves, and make him set me up for life. Why not? She was good as gone, and—”He set down the glass, and wiped the dew that had gathered off his brow, looking whiter than before, for just then a memory had come into Isaac’s mental vision—it was a horrible recollection of having been tempted to go and see the execution of a murderer at the county town, and this man’s accomplice was executed a month later.“Accomplice” was an ugly word that seemed to force itself into Isaac’s mind, and he shook his head and hurriedly finished laying the cloth.“Let him pay me my wages, all back arrears,” he said. “Perhaps there is a way of selling a secret without being an accomplice, but I don’t know, and—oh, I couldn’t do it. It would kill that poor girl, who’s about worried to death with the dreadful business, without there being anything else.”
“Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life,” cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturdy soldier who held him back.
But it wanted not Claire’s hand upon Fred Denville’s arm to stay the blow. The passionate rage fled as swiftly as it had flashed up, and he tore himself away.
“You shouldn’t have struck me,” he cried in a voice full of anguish. “I couldn’t master myself. You struck her—the best and truest girl who ever breathed; and I’d rather be what I am—scamp, drunkard, common soldier, and have struck you down, than you, who gave that poor girl a cowardly blow. Claire—my girl—God bless you! I can come here no more.”
He caught her wildly in his arms, kissed her passionately, and then literally staggered out of the house, and they saw him reel by the window.
There was again a terrible silence in that room, where the old man, looking feeble and strange now, lay back in the chair where he had been thrown, staring wildly straight before him as Claire sank upon the carpet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing to herself.
“And this is home! And this is home!”
She tried to restrain her tears, but they burst forth with sobs more wild and uncontrolled; and at last they had their effect upon the old man, whose wild stare passed off, and, rising painfully in his seat, he glared at the door and shuddered.
“How dare he come!” he muttered. “How dare he touch her! How—”
He stopped as he turned his eyes upon where Claire crouched, as if he had suddenly become aware of her presence, and his face softened into a piteous yearning look as he stretched out his hands towards her, and then slowly rose to his feet.
“I struck her,” he muttered, “I struck her. My child—my darling! I—I—Claire—Claire—”
His voice was very low as he slowly sank upon his knees, and softly laid one hand upon her dress, raising it to his lips and kissing it with a curiously strange abasement in his manner.
Claire did not move nor seem to hear him, and he crept nearer to her and timidly laid his hand upon her head.
He snatched it away directly, and knelt there gazing at her wildly, for she shuddered, shrank from him, and, starting to her feet, backed towards the door with such a look of repulsion in her face that the old man clasped his hands together, and his lips parted as if to cry to her for mercy.
But no sound left them, and for a full minute they remained gazing the one at the other. Then, with a heartrending sob, Claire drew open the door and hurried from the room.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” groaned Denville as he rose heavily to his feet. “It is too hard to bear. Better sleep—at once and for ever.”
He sank into his chair with his hands clasped and his elbows resting upon his knees, and he bent lower and lower, as if borne down by the weight of his sorrow; and thus he remained as the minutes glided by, till, hearing a step at last, and the jingle of glass, he rose quickly, smoothed his care-marked face, and thrusting his hand into his breast, began to pace the room, catching up hat and stick, and half closing his eyes, as if in deep thought.
It was a good bit of acting, for when Isaac entered with a tray to lay the dinner cloth, and glanced quickly at his master, it was to see him calm and apparently buried in some plan, with not the slightest trace of domestic care upon his well-masked face.
“Mr Morton at home, Isaac?” he said, with a slightly-affected drawl.
“No, sir; been out hours.”
“Not gone fishing, Isaac?”
“No, sir; I think Mr Morton’s gone up to the barracks, sir. Said he should be back to dinner, sir.”
“That is right, Isaac. That is right. I think I will go for a little promenade before dinner myself.”
“He’s a rum ’un,” muttered the footman as he stood behind the curtain on one side of the window; “anyone would think we were all as happy as the day’s long here, when all the time the place is chock full of horrors, and if I was to speak—”
Isaac did not finish his sentence, but remained watching the Master of the Ceremonies with his careful mincing step till he was out of sight, when the footman turned from the window to stand tapping the dining-table with his finger tips.
“If I was to go, there’d be a regular wreck, and I shouldn’t get a penny of my back wages. If I stay, he may get them two well married, and then there’d be money in the house. Better stay. Lor’, if people only knew all I could tell ’em about this house, and the scraping, and putting off bills, and the troubles with Miss May and the two boys, and—”
Isaac drew a long breath and turned rather white.
“I feel sometimes as if I ought to make a clean breast of it, but I don’t like to. He isn’t such a bad sort, when you come to know him, but that—ugh!”
He shuddered, and began to rattle the knives and forks upon the table, giving one a rub now and then on his shabby livery.
“It’s a puzzler,” he said, stopping short, after breathing in a glass, and giving it a rub with a cloth. “Some day, I suppose, there’ll be a difference, and he’ll be flush of money. I suppose he daren’t start yet. Suppose I—No; that wouldn’t do. He’ll pay all the back, then, and I might—”
Isaac shuddered again, and muttered to himself in a very mysterious way. Then, all at once:
“Why, I might cry halves, and make him set me up for life. Why not? She was good as gone, and—”
He set down the glass, and wiped the dew that had gathered off his brow, looking whiter than before, for just then a memory had come into Isaac’s mental vision—it was a horrible recollection of having been tempted to go and see the execution of a murderer at the county town, and this man’s accomplice was executed a month later.
“Accomplice” was an ugly word that seemed to force itself into Isaac’s mind, and he shook his head and hurriedly finished laying the cloth.
“Let him pay me my wages, all back arrears,” he said. “Perhaps there is a way of selling a secret without being an accomplice, but I don’t know, and—oh, I couldn’t do it. It would kill that poor girl, who’s about worried to death with the dreadful business, without there being anything else.”
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Four.Pressed for Money.As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments can charge his own prices; but Stuart Denville, Esq, MC, of Saltinville, paid a visit to his tailor to find that gentleman inexorable.“No, Mr Denville, sir, it ain’t to be done. I should be glad to fit out the young man, as he should be fitted out as a gentleman, sir; but there is bounds to everything.”“Exactly, my dear Mr Ping, but I can assure you that before long both his and my accounts shall be paid.”“No, sir, can’t do it. I’m very busy, too. Why not try Crowder and Son?”“My dee-ar Mr Ping—you’ll pardon me? I ask you as a man, as an artist in your profession, could I see my son—my heir—a gentleman who I hope some day will make a brilliant match—a young man who is going at once into the best of society—could I now, Mr Ping, see that youth in a suit of clothes made by Crowder and Son? Refuse my appeal, if you please, my dear sir, but—you’ll pardon me—do not add insult to the injury.”Mr Ping was mollified, and rubbed his hands softly. This was flattering: for Crowder and Son, according to his view of the case, did not deserve to be called tailors—certainly not gentlemen’s tailors; but he remained firm.“No, Mr Denville, sir, far be it from me to wish to insult you, sir, and I thank you for the amount of custom you’ve brought me. You can’t say as I’m unfair.”“You’ll pardon me, Mr Ping; I never did.”“Thank you, sir; but as I was a saying, you’ve had clothes of me, sir, for years, and you haven’t paid me, sir, and I haven’t grumbled, seeing as you’ve introduced me clients, but I can’t start an account for Mr Denville, junior, sir, and I won’t.”The MC took snuff, and rested first on one leg and then on the other; lastly, he held his head on one side and admired two or three velvet waistcoat pieces, so as to give Mr Ping time to repent. But Mr Ping did not want time to repent, and he would not have repented had the MC stayed an hour, and this the latter knew, but dared not resent, bowing himself out at last gracefully.“Good-morning, Mr Ping, good-morning. I am sorry you—er—but no matter. Lovely day, is it not?”“Lovely, sir. Good-morning—poor, penniless, proud, stuck-up, half-starved old dandy,” muttered the prosperous tradesman, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves at the door, his grey hair all brushed forward into a fierce frise, and a yellow inch tape round his neck like an alderman’s chain. “I wouldn’t trust his boy a sixpence to save his life. Prospects, indeed. Fashion, indeed. I expect he’ll have to ’list.”The MC went smiling and mincing along the parade, waving his cane jauntily, and passing his snuff-box into the other hand now and then to raise his hat to some one or another, till he turned up a side street, when, in the solitude of the empty way, he uttered a low groan, and his face changed.“My God!” he muttered. “How long is this miserable degradation to last?”He looked round sharply, as if in dread lest the emotion into which he had been betrayed should have been observed, but there was no one near.“I must try Barclay. I dare not go to Frank Burnett, for poor May’s sake.”A few minutes later he minced and rolled up to a large, heavy-looking mansion in a back street, where, beneath a great dingy portico, a grotesque satyr’s head held a heavy knocker, and grinned at the visitor who made it sound upon the door.“Hallo, Denville, you here?” said Mr Barclay, coming up from the street. “Didn’t expect to see you. I’ve got the key: come in.”“A little bit of business, my dear sir. I thought I’d come on instead of writing. Thanks—you’ll pardon me—a pinch of snuff—the Prince’s own mixture.”“Ah yes.”Snuff, snuff, snuff. “Don’t like it though—too scented for me. Come along.”He led the way through a large, gloomy hall, well hung with large pictures and ornamented with pedestals and busts, up a broad, well-carpeted staircase and into the drawing-room of the house—a room, however, that looked more like a museum, so crowded was it with pictures, old china, clocks, statues, and bronzes. Huge vases, tiny Dresden ornaments, rich carpets, branches and lustres of cut-glass and ormolu, almost jostled each other, while the centre of the room was filled with lounges, chairs and tables, rich in buhl and marqueterie.At a table covered with papers sat plump, pleasant-looking Mrs Barclay, in a very rich, stiff brocade silk. Her appearance was vulgar; there were too many rings upon her fat fingers, too much jewellery about her neck and throat; and her showy cap was a wonder of lace and ribbons; but Nature had set its stamp upon her countenance, and though she was holding her head on one side, pursing up her lips and frowning as she wrote in the big ledger-like book open before her, there was no mistaking the fact that she was a thoroughly good-hearted amiable soul.“Oh, bless us, how you startled me!” she cried, throwing herself back, for the door had opened quietly, and steps were hardly heard upon the soft carpet. “Why, it’s you, Mr Denville, looking as if you were just going to a ball. How are you? Not well? You look amiss. And how’s Miss Claire? and pretty little Mrs Mayblossom—Mrs Burnett?”“My daughters are well in the extreme, Mrs Barclay,” said the MC, taking the lady’s plump extended hand as she rose, to bend over it, and kiss the fingers with the most courtly grace. “And you, my dear madam, you?”“Oh, she’s well enough, Denville,” said Barclay, chuckling. “Robust’s the word for her.”“For shame, Jo-si-ah!” exclaimed the lady, reddening furiously. She had only blushed slightly before with pleasure; and after kicking back her stiff silk dress to make a profound curtsey. “You shouldn’t say such things. Why, Mr Denville, I haven’t seen you for ever so long; and I’ve meant to call on Miss Claire, for we always get on so well together; but I’m so busy, what with the servants,andthe dusting,andthe keeping the books,andthe exercise as I’m obliged to take—”“And don’t,” said Barclay, placing a chair for the MC, and then sitting down and putting his hands in his pockets.“For shame, Jo-si-ah. I do indeed, Mr Denville, and it do make me so hot.”“There, that’ll do, old lady. Mr Denville wants to see me on business. Don’t you, Denville?”“Yes—on a trifle of business; but I know that Mrs Barclay is in your confidence. You’ll pardon me, Mrs Barclay?”A looker-on would have imagined that he was about to dance a minuet with the lady, but he delicately took her fingers by the very tip and led her back to her seat, into which she meant to glide gracefully, but plumped down in a very feather-beddy way, and then blushed and frowned.“Oh, Mr Denville won’t mind me; and him an old neighbour, too, as knows how I keep your books and everything. It isn’t as if he was one of your wicked bucks, and bloods, and macaronies as they calls ’em.”“Now, when you’ve done talking, woman, perhaps you’ll let Denville speak.”“Jo-si-ah!” exclaimed the lady, reddening, or to speak more correctly, growing more red, as she raised a large fan, which hung by a silken cord, and used it furiously.“Now then, Denville, what is it?” said Barclay, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking the extreme of vulgarity beside the visitor’s refinement.“You’ll pardon me, Mr Barclay?” said the MC, bowing. “Thanks. The fact is, my dear Barclay, the time has arrived when I must launch my son Morton upon the stream of the fashionable world.”“Mean to marry him well?” said Barclay, smiling.“Exactly. Yes. You’ll pardon me.”He took snuff in a slow, deliberate, and studied mode that Mrs Barclay watched attentively, declaring afterwards that it was as good as a play, while her husband also took his pinch from his own box, but in a loud, rough, frill-browning way.“I have high hopes and admirable prospects opening out before him, my dear Barclay. Fortune seems to have marked him for her own, and to have begun to smile.”“Fickle jade, sir; fickle jade.”“At times—you’ll pardon me. At times. Let us enjoy her smiles while we can. And now, my dear Barclay, that I wish to launch him handsomely and well—to add to his natural advantages the little touches of dress, a cane and snuff-box, and such trifles—I find, through the absence of so many fashionable visitors affecting my fees, I am troubled, inconvenienced for the want of a few guineas, and—er—it is very ridiculous—er—really I did not know whom to ask, till it occurred to me that you, my dear sir, would oblige me with, say, forty or fifty upon my note of hand.”“Couldn’t do it, sir. Haven’t the money. Couldn’t.”“Don’t talk such stuff, Jo-si-ah,” exclaimed Mrs Barclay, fanning herself sharply, and making a sausage-like curl wabble to and fro, and her ribbons flutter. “You can if you like.”“Woman!” he exclaimed furiously.“Oh, I don’t mind you saying ‘woman,’” retorted the lady. “Telling such wicked fibs, and to an old neighbour too. If it had been that nasty, sneering, snickle dandy, Sir Harry Payne, or that big, pompous, dressed-up Sir Matthew Bray, you’d have lent them money directly. I’m ashamed of you.”“Will you allow me to carry on my business in my own way, madam?”“Yes, when it’s with nobodies; but I won’t sit by and hear you tell our old neighbour, who wants a bit of help, that you couldn’t do it, and that you haven’t the money, when anybody can see it sticking out in lumps in both of your breeches’ pockets, if they like to look.”“’Pon my soul, woman,” said Barclay, banging his fist down upon the table, “you’re enough to drive a man mad. Denville, that woman will ruin me.”Mrs Barclay shut up her fan and sat back in her chair, and there was a curious kind of palpitating throbbing perceptible all over her that was almost startling at first till her face broke up in dimples, and the red lips parted, showing her white teeth, while her eyes half-closed. For Mrs Barclay was laughing heartily.“Ruin him, Mr Denville, ruin him!” she cried. “Ha, ha, ha, and me knowing that—”“Woman, will you hold your tongue?” thundered Barclay. “There, don’t take any notice of what I said, Denville. I’ve been put out this morning and money’s scarce. You owe me sixty now and interest, besides two years’ rent.”“I do—I do, my dear sir; but really, my dear Barclay, I intend to repay you every guinea.”“He’s going to lend it to you, Mr Denville,” said Mrs Barclay. “It’s only his way. He always tells people he hasn’t any money, and that he has to get it from his friend in the City.”“Be quiet, woman,” said Barclay, smiling grimly. “There, I’ll let you have it, Denville. Make a memorandum of it, my gal. Let’s see: how much do you want? Twenty-five will do, I suppose?”“My dear friend—you’ll pardon me—if you could make it fifty you would confer a lasting obligation upon me. I have great hopes, indeed.”“Fifty? It’s a great deal of money, Denville.”“Lend him the fifty, Josiah, and don’t make so much fuss about it,” said the lady, opening the ledger, after drawing her chair to the table, taking a dip of ink, and writing rapidly in a round, clear hand. “Got a stamp?”“Yes,” said Barclay, taking a large well-worn pocket-book from his breast, and separating one from quite a quire. “Fill it up. Two months after date, Denville?”“You’ll pardon me.”“What’s the use of doing a neighbour a good turn,” said Mrs Barclay, filling up the slip of blue paper in the most business-like manner, “and spoiling it by being so tight. ‘Six months—after—date—interest—at—five—per—centum’—there.”Mrs Barclay put her quill pen across her mouth, and, turning the bill stamp over, gave it a couple of vigorous rubs on the blotting-paper before handing it to her husband, who ran his eye over it quickly.“Why, you’ve put five per cent,per annum,” he cried. “Here, fill up another. Five per cent.”“Stuff!” said Mrs Barclay stoutly; “are you going to charge the poor man sixty per cent? I shan’t fill up another. Here, you sign this, Mr Denville. Give the poor man his money, Josiah.”“Well,” exclaimed Barclay, taking a cash-box from a drawer and opening it with a good deal of noise, “if ever man was cursed with a tyrant for a wife—”“It isn’t you. There!” cried Mrs Barclay, taking the bill which the visitor had duly signed, and placing it in a case along with some of its kin.“There you are, Denville,” said Barclay, counting out the money in notes, “and if you go and tell people what a fool I am, I shall have to leave the town.”“Not while I live, Mr Barclay,” said the MC, taking the notes carefully, but with an air of indolent carelessness and grace, as if they were of no account to such a man as he. “Sir, I thank you from my very heart. You have done me a most kindly action. Mrs Barclay, I thank you. My daughter shall thank you for this. You’ll pardon me. My visit is rather short. But business. Mr Barclay, good-day. I shall not forget this. Mrs Barclay, your humble servant.”He took the hand she held out by the tips of the fingers, and bent over it to kiss them with the most delicate of touches; but somehow, just then there seemed to be a catch in his breath, and he pressed his lips firmly on the soft, fat hand.“God bless you!” he said huskily, and he turned and left the room.“Poor man!” said Mrs Barclay after a few moments’ pause, as she and her lord listened to the descending steps, and heard the front door close. “Why, look here, Josiah, at my hand, if it ain’t a tear.”“Tchah! an old impostor and sham. Wipe it off, woman, wipe it off. Kissing your hand, too, like that, before my very face.”“No, Jo-si-ah, I don’t believe he’s a bad one under all his sham and fuss. Folks don’t know folkses’ insides. They say you are about the hard-heartedest old money-lender that ever breathed, but they don’t know you as I do. There, it was very good of you to let him have it, poor old man. I knew you would.”“I’ve thrown fifty pounds slap into the gutter.”“No, you haven’t, dear; you’ve lent it to that poor old fellow, and you’ve just pleased me a deal better than if you’d given me a diamond ring, and that’s for it, and more to come.”As she spoke she threw one plump arm round the money-lender’s neck, and there was a sound in the room as of a smack.
As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments can charge his own prices; but Stuart Denville, Esq, MC, of Saltinville, paid a visit to his tailor to find that gentleman inexorable.
“No, Mr Denville, sir, it ain’t to be done. I should be glad to fit out the young man, as he should be fitted out as a gentleman, sir; but there is bounds to everything.”
“Exactly, my dear Mr Ping, but I can assure you that before long both his and my accounts shall be paid.”
“No, sir, can’t do it. I’m very busy, too. Why not try Crowder and Son?”
“My dee-ar Mr Ping—you’ll pardon me? I ask you as a man, as an artist in your profession, could I see my son—my heir—a gentleman who I hope some day will make a brilliant match—a young man who is going at once into the best of society—could I now, Mr Ping, see that youth in a suit of clothes made by Crowder and Son? Refuse my appeal, if you please, my dear sir, but—you’ll pardon me—do not add insult to the injury.”
Mr Ping was mollified, and rubbed his hands softly. This was flattering: for Crowder and Son, according to his view of the case, did not deserve to be called tailors—certainly not gentlemen’s tailors; but he remained firm.
“No, Mr Denville, sir, far be it from me to wish to insult you, sir, and I thank you for the amount of custom you’ve brought me. You can’t say as I’m unfair.”
“You’ll pardon me, Mr Ping; I never did.”
“Thank you, sir; but as I was a saying, you’ve had clothes of me, sir, for years, and you haven’t paid me, sir, and I haven’t grumbled, seeing as you’ve introduced me clients, but I can’t start an account for Mr Denville, junior, sir, and I won’t.”
The MC took snuff, and rested first on one leg and then on the other; lastly, he held his head on one side and admired two or three velvet waistcoat pieces, so as to give Mr Ping time to repent. But Mr Ping did not want time to repent, and he would not have repented had the MC stayed an hour, and this the latter knew, but dared not resent, bowing himself out at last gracefully.
“Good-morning, Mr Ping, good-morning. I am sorry you—er—but no matter. Lovely day, is it not?”
“Lovely, sir. Good-morning—poor, penniless, proud, stuck-up, half-starved old dandy,” muttered the prosperous tradesman, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves at the door, his grey hair all brushed forward into a fierce frise, and a yellow inch tape round his neck like an alderman’s chain. “I wouldn’t trust his boy a sixpence to save his life. Prospects, indeed. Fashion, indeed. I expect he’ll have to ’list.”
The MC went smiling and mincing along the parade, waving his cane jauntily, and passing his snuff-box into the other hand now and then to raise his hat to some one or another, till he turned up a side street, when, in the solitude of the empty way, he uttered a low groan, and his face changed.
“My God!” he muttered. “How long is this miserable degradation to last?”
He looked round sharply, as if in dread lest the emotion into which he had been betrayed should have been observed, but there was no one near.
“I must try Barclay. I dare not go to Frank Burnett, for poor May’s sake.”
A few minutes later he minced and rolled up to a large, heavy-looking mansion in a back street, where, beneath a great dingy portico, a grotesque satyr’s head held a heavy knocker, and grinned at the visitor who made it sound upon the door.
“Hallo, Denville, you here?” said Mr Barclay, coming up from the street. “Didn’t expect to see you. I’ve got the key: come in.”
“A little bit of business, my dear sir. I thought I’d come on instead of writing. Thanks—you’ll pardon me—a pinch of snuff—the Prince’s own mixture.”
“Ah yes.”Snuff, snuff, snuff. “Don’t like it though—too scented for me. Come along.”
He led the way through a large, gloomy hall, well hung with large pictures and ornamented with pedestals and busts, up a broad, well-carpeted staircase and into the drawing-room of the house—a room, however, that looked more like a museum, so crowded was it with pictures, old china, clocks, statues, and bronzes. Huge vases, tiny Dresden ornaments, rich carpets, branches and lustres of cut-glass and ormolu, almost jostled each other, while the centre of the room was filled with lounges, chairs and tables, rich in buhl and marqueterie.
At a table covered with papers sat plump, pleasant-looking Mrs Barclay, in a very rich, stiff brocade silk. Her appearance was vulgar; there were too many rings upon her fat fingers, too much jewellery about her neck and throat; and her showy cap was a wonder of lace and ribbons; but Nature had set its stamp upon her countenance, and though she was holding her head on one side, pursing up her lips and frowning as she wrote in the big ledger-like book open before her, there was no mistaking the fact that she was a thoroughly good-hearted amiable soul.
“Oh, bless us, how you startled me!” she cried, throwing herself back, for the door had opened quietly, and steps were hardly heard upon the soft carpet. “Why, it’s you, Mr Denville, looking as if you were just going to a ball. How are you? Not well? You look amiss. And how’s Miss Claire? and pretty little Mrs Mayblossom—Mrs Burnett?”
“My daughters are well in the extreme, Mrs Barclay,” said the MC, taking the lady’s plump extended hand as she rose, to bend over it, and kiss the fingers with the most courtly grace. “And you, my dear madam, you?”
“Oh, she’s well enough, Denville,” said Barclay, chuckling. “Robust’s the word for her.”
“For shame, Jo-si-ah!” exclaimed the lady, reddening furiously. She had only blushed slightly before with pleasure; and after kicking back her stiff silk dress to make a profound curtsey. “You shouldn’t say such things. Why, Mr Denville, I haven’t seen you for ever so long; and I’ve meant to call on Miss Claire, for we always get on so well together; but I’m so busy, what with the servants,andthe dusting,andthe keeping the books,andthe exercise as I’m obliged to take—”
“And don’t,” said Barclay, placing a chair for the MC, and then sitting down and putting his hands in his pockets.
“For shame, Jo-si-ah. I do indeed, Mr Denville, and it do make me so hot.”
“There, that’ll do, old lady. Mr Denville wants to see me on business. Don’t you, Denville?”
“Yes—on a trifle of business; but I know that Mrs Barclay is in your confidence. You’ll pardon me, Mrs Barclay?”
A looker-on would have imagined that he was about to dance a minuet with the lady, but he delicately took her fingers by the very tip and led her back to her seat, into which she meant to glide gracefully, but plumped down in a very feather-beddy way, and then blushed and frowned.
“Oh, Mr Denville won’t mind me; and him an old neighbour, too, as knows how I keep your books and everything. It isn’t as if he was one of your wicked bucks, and bloods, and macaronies as they calls ’em.”
“Now, when you’ve done talking, woman, perhaps you’ll let Denville speak.”
“Jo-si-ah!” exclaimed the lady, reddening, or to speak more correctly, growing more red, as she raised a large fan, which hung by a silken cord, and used it furiously.
“Now then, Denville, what is it?” said Barclay, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking the extreme of vulgarity beside the visitor’s refinement.
“You’ll pardon me, Mr Barclay?” said the MC, bowing. “Thanks. The fact is, my dear Barclay, the time has arrived when I must launch my son Morton upon the stream of the fashionable world.”
“Mean to marry him well?” said Barclay, smiling.
“Exactly. Yes. You’ll pardon me.”
He took snuff in a slow, deliberate, and studied mode that Mrs Barclay watched attentively, declaring afterwards that it was as good as a play, while her husband also took his pinch from his own box, but in a loud, rough, frill-browning way.
“I have high hopes and admirable prospects opening out before him, my dear Barclay. Fortune seems to have marked him for her own, and to have begun to smile.”
“Fickle jade, sir; fickle jade.”
“At times—you’ll pardon me. At times. Let us enjoy her smiles while we can. And now, my dear Barclay, that I wish to launch him handsomely and well—to add to his natural advantages the little touches of dress, a cane and snuff-box, and such trifles—I find, through the absence of so many fashionable visitors affecting my fees, I am troubled, inconvenienced for the want of a few guineas, and—er—it is very ridiculous—er—really I did not know whom to ask, till it occurred to me that you, my dear sir, would oblige me with, say, forty or fifty upon my note of hand.”
“Couldn’t do it, sir. Haven’t the money. Couldn’t.”
“Don’t talk such stuff, Jo-si-ah,” exclaimed Mrs Barclay, fanning herself sharply, and making a sausage-like curl wabble to and fro, and her ribbons flutter. “You can if you like.”
“Woman!” he exclaimed furiously.
“Oh, I don’t mind you saying ‘woman,’” retorted the lady. “Telling such wicked fibs, and to an old neighbour too. If it had been that nasty, sneering, snickle dandy, Sir Harry Payne, or that big, pompous, dressed-up Sir Matthew Bray, you’d have lent them money directly. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Will you allow me to carry on my business in my own way, madam?”
“Yes, when it’s with nobodies; but I won’t sit by and hear you tell our old neighbour, who wants a bit of help, that you couldn’t do it, and that you haven’t the money, when anybody can see it sticking out in lumps in both of your breeches’ pockets, if they like to look.”
“’Pon my soul, woman,” said Barclay, banging his fist down upon the table, “you’re enough to drive a man mad. Denville, that woman will ruin me.”
Mrs Barclay shut up her fan and sat back in her chair, and there was a curious kind of palpitating throbbing perceptible all over her that was almost startling at first till her face broke up in dimples, and the red lips parted, showing her white teeth, while her eyes half-closed. For Mrs Barclay was laughing heartily.
“Ruin him, Mr Denville, ruin him!” she cried. “Ha, ha, ha, and me knowing that—”
“Woman, will you hold your tongue?” thundered Barclay. “There, don’t take any notice of what I said, Denville. I’ve been put out this morning and money’s scarce. You owe me sixty now and interest, besides two years’ rent.”
“I do—I do, my dear sir; but really, my dear Barclay, I intend to repay you every guinea.”
“He’s going to lend it to you, Mr Denville,” said Mrs Barclay. “It’s only his way. He always tells people he hasn’t any money, and that he has to get it from his friend in the City.”
“Be quiet, woman,” said Barclay, smiling grimly. “There, I’ll let you have it, Denville. Make a memorandum of it, my gal. Let’s see: how much do you want? Twenty-five will do, I suppose?”
“My dear friend—you’ll pardon me—if you could make it fifty you would confer a lasting obligation upon me. I have great hopes, indeed.”
“Fifty? It’s a great deal of money, Denville.”
“Lend him the fifty, Josiah, and don’t make so much fuss about it,” said the lady, opening the ledger, after drawing her chair to the table, taking a dip of ink, and writing rapidly in a round, clear hand. “Got a stamp?”
“Yes,” said Barclay, taking a large well-worn pocket-book from his breast, and separating one from quite a quire. “Fill it up. Two months after date, Denville?”
“You’ll pardon me.”
“What’s the use of doing a neighbour a good turn,” said Mrs Barclay, filling up the slip of blue paper in the most business-like manner, “and spoiling it by being so tight. ‘Six months—after—date—interest—at—five—per—centum’—there.”
Mrs Barclay put her quill pen across her mouth, and, turning the bill stamp over, gave it a couple of vigorous rubs on the blotting-paper before handing it to her husband, who ran his eye over it quickly.
“Why, you’ve put five per cent,per annum,” he cried. “Here, fill up another. Five per cent.”
“Stuff!” said Mrs Barclay stoutly; “are you going to charge the poor man sixty per cent? I shan’t fill up another. Here, you sign this, Mr Denville. Give the poor man his money, Josiah.”
“Well,” exclaimed Barclay, taking a cash-box from a drawer and opening it with a good deal of noise, “if ever man was cursed with a tyrant for a wife—”
“It isn’t you. There!” cried Mrs Barclay, taking the bill which the visitor had duly signed, and placing it in a case along with some of its kin.
“There you are, Denville,” said Barclay, counting out the money in notes, “and if you go and tell people what a fool I am, I shall have to leave the town.”
“Not while I live, Mr Barclay,” said the MC, taking the notes carefully, but with an air of indolent carelessness and grace, as if they were of no account to such a man as he. “Sir, I thank you from my very heart. You have done me a most kindly action. Mrs Barclay, I thank you. My daughter shall thank you for this. You’ll pardon me. My visit is rather short. But business. Mr Barclay, good-day. I shall not forget this. Mrs Barclay, your humble servant.”
He took the hand she held out by the tips of the fingers, and bent over it to kiss them with the most delicate of touches; but somehow, just then there seemed to be a catch in his breath, and he pressed his lips firmly on the soft, fat hand.
“God bless you!” he said huskily, and he turned and left the room.
“Poor man!” said Mrs Barclay after a few moments’ pause, as she and her lord listened to the descending steps, and heard the front door close. “Why, look here, Josiah, at my hand, if it ain’t a tear.”
“Tchah! an old impostor and sham. Wipe it off, woman, wipe it off. Kissing your hand, too, like that, before my very face.”
“No, Jo-si-ah, I don’t believe he’s a bad one under all his sham and fuss. Folks don’t know folkses’ insides. They say you are about the hard-heartedest old money-lender that ever breathed, but they don’t know you as I do. There, it was very good of you to let him have it, poor old man. I knew you would.”
“I’ve thrown fifty pounds slap into the gutter.”
“No, you haven’t, dear; you’ve lent it to that poor old fellow, and you’ve just pleased me a deal better than if you’d given me a diamond ring, and that’s for it, and more to come.”
As she spoke she threw one plump arm round the money-lender’s neck, and there was a sound in the room as of a smack.