“You will excuse me,” I said, to my companion, “for remarking, that when
you addressed the individual sitting on the porcelain stool, with his
head in his lap, your ordinarily benevolent features”--(this I confess
was a bouncer, for between ourselves a more sinister and ill-looking
rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom set eyes on)--“your ordinarily
handsome face wore an expression that was by no means pleasing. You
grinned at the individual just as you did at me when you went up to the
cei--, pardon me, as I THOUGHT you did, when I fell down in a fit in
your chambers;” and I qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble;
I did not care to offend the man--I did not DARE to offend the man.
I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab, and flying; of taking
refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse; of speaking to a
policeman, but not one would come. I was this man's slave. I followed
him like his dog. I COULD not get away from him. So, you see, I went
on meanly conversing with him, and affecting a simpering confidence.
I remember, when I was a little boy at school, going up fawning and
smiling in this way to some great hulking bully of a sixth-form boy.
So I said in a word, “Your ordinarily handsome face wore a disagreeable
expression,” &c.
“It is ordinarily VERY handsome,” said he, with such a leer at a couple
of passers-by, that one of them cried, “Oh, crikey, here's a
precious guy!” and a child, in its nurse's arms, screamed itself
into convulsions. “Oh, oui, che suis tres-choli garcon, bien peau,
cerdainement,” continued Mr. Pinto; “but you were right. That--that
person was not very well pleased when he saw me. There was no love
lost between us, as you say; and the world never knew a more worthless
miscreant. I hate him, voyez-vous? I hated him alife; I hate him dead.
I hate him man; I hate him ghost: and he know it, and tremble before me.
If I see him twenty tausend years hence--and why not?--I shall hate him
still. You remarked how he was dressed?”
“In black satin breeches and striped stockings; a white pique waistcoat,
a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his hair in powder. He must
have worn a pigtail--only--”
“Only it was CUT OFF! Ha, ha, ha!” Mr. Pinto cried, yelling a laugh,
which I observed made the policeman stare very much. “Yes. It was cut
off by the same blow which took off the scoundrel's head--ho, ho, ho!”
And he made a circle with his hook-nailed finger round his own yellow
neck, and grinned with a horrible triumph. “I promise you that fellow
was surprised when he found his head in the pannier. Ha! ha! Do you ever
cease to hate those whom you hate?”--fire flashed terrifically from his
glass eye, as he spoke--“or to love dose whom you once loved. Oh, never,
never!” And here his natural eye was bedewed with tears. “But here we
are at the 'Gray's-inn Coffee-house.' James, what is the joint?”
That very respectful and efficient waiter brought in the bill of fare,
and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of pork and pease-pudding, which my
acquaintance said would do as well as anything else; though I remarked
he only trifled with the pease-pudding, and left all the pork on the
plate. In fact, he scarcely ate anything. But he drank a prodigious
quantity of wine; and I must say that my friend Mr. Hart's port-wine is
so good that I myself took--well, I should think, I took three glasses.
Yes, three, certainly. HE--I mean Mr. P.--the old rogue, was insatiable:
for we had to call for a second bottle in no time. When that was gone,
my companion wanted another. A little red mounted up to his yellow
cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner. “I
remember,” said he, musing, “when port-wine was scarcely drunk in this
country--though the Queen liked it, and so did Harley; but Bolingbroke
didn't--he drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. Swift put water to his
wine. 'Jonathan,' I once said to him--but bah! autres temps, autres
moeurs. Another magnum, James.”
This was all very well. “My good sir,” I said, “it may suit you to order
bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle; but that kind of price
does not suit me. I only happen to have thirty-four and sixpence in my
pocket, of which I want a shilling for the waiter, and eighteenpence for
my cab. You rich foreigners and SWELLS may spend what you like” (I had
him there: for my friend's dress was as shabby as an old-clothesman's);
“but a man with a family, Mr. What-d'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend
seven or eight hundred a year on his dinner alone.”
“Bah!” he said. “Nunkey pays for all, as you say. I will what you
call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!” and again he gave that
disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crooked-nailed and by no means
clean finger to his nose. But I was not so afraid of him now, for we
were in a public place; and the three glasses of port-wine had, you see,
given me courage.
“What a pretty snuff-box!” he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am
still old-fashioned enough to carry. It is a pretty old gold box enough,
but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom
I can just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me. “Yes;
a pretty box. I can remember when many ladies--most ladies, carried
a box--nay, two boxes--tabatiere, and bonbonniere. What lady carries
snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly
were to offer you a prise? I can remember a lady with such a box as
this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a
tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes
in the world!--ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I
have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk
with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee
then? Do I not see thee still?”
This was passing strange. My ancestress--but there is no need to publish
her revered name--did indeed live at Bungay St. Mary's, where she lies
buried. She used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane. She used to wear
little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high heels in the world.
“Did you--did you--know, then, my great gr-ndm-ther?” I said.
He pulled up his coat-sleeve--“Is that her name?” he said.
“Eliza ----”
There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in
red on his arm.
“YOU knew her old,” he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange
knack); “I knew her young and lovely. I danced with her at the Bury
ball. Did I not, dear, dear Miss ----?”
As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's MAIDEN name. Her maiden name
was ----. Her honored married name was ----.
“She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the Newmarket
Plate,” Mr. Pinto dryly remarked.
Merciful powers! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case
on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very
horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his
shoulders, was over the mantel-piece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup
in the year 1783!
“Yes; you are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night,
before I lost my poor leg. And I quarrelled with your grandf----, ha!”
As he said “Ha!” there came three quiet little taps on the table--it is
the middle table in the “Gray's-inn Coffee-house,” under the bust of the
late Duke of W-ll-ngt-n.
“I fired in the air,” he continued “did I not?” (Tap, tap, tap.) “Your
grandfather hit me in the leg. He married three months afterwards.
'Captain Brown,' I said, 'who could see Miss Sm-th without loving her?'
She is there! She is there!” (Tap, tap, tap.) “Yes, my first love--”
But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means “No.”
“I forgot,” he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan features,
“she was not my first love. In Germ--- in my own country--there WAS a
young woman--”
Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little treble knock; and
when the old man said, “But I loved thee better than all the world,
Eliza,” the affirmative signal was briskly repeated.
And this I declare UPON MY HONOR. There was, I have said, a bottle of
port-wine before us--I should say a decanter. That decanter was LIFTED
up, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine were
poured. I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlord--I appeal to James, the
respectful and intelligent waiter, if this statement is not true? And
when we had finished that magnum, and I said--for I did not now in the
least doubt of her presence--“Dear gr-nny, may we have another magnum?”
the table DISTINCTLY rapped “No.”
“Now, my good sir,” Mr. Pinto said, who really began to be affected
by the wine, “you understand the interest I have taken in you. I loved
Eliza ----” (of course I don't mention family names). “I knew you had
that box which belonged to her--I will give you what you like for that
box. Name your price at once, and I pay you on the spot.”
“Why, when we came out, you said you had not sixpence in your pocket.”
“Bah! give you anything you like--fifty--a hundred--a tausend pound.”
“Come, come,” said I, “the gold of the box may be worth nine guineas,
and the facon we will put at six more.”
“One tausend guineas!” he screeched. “One tausend and fifty pound,
dere!” and he sank back in his chair--no, by the way, on his bench, for
he was sitting with his back to one of the partitions of the boxes, as I
dare say James remembers.
“DON'T go on in this way,” I continued, rather weakly, for I did not
know whether I was in a dream. “If you offer me a thousand guineas for
this box I MUST take it. Mustn't I, dear gr-nny?”
The table most distinctly said, “Yes;” and putting out his claws to
seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked nose into it, and eagerly
inhaled some of my 47 with a dash of Hardman.
“But stay, you old harpy!” I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and
quite familiar with him. “Where is the money? Where is the check?”
“James, a piece of note-paper and a receipt stamp!”
“This is all mighty well, sir,” I said, “but I don't know you; I never
saw you before. I will trouble you to hand me that box back again, or
give me a check with some known signature.”
“Whose? Ha, Ha, HA!”
The room happened to be very dark. Indeed, all the waiters were gone to
supper, and there were only two gentlemen snoring in their respective
boxes. I saw a hand come quivering down from the ceiling--a very pretty
hand, on which was a ring with a coronet, with a lion rampant gules for
a crest. I SAW THAT HAND TAKE A DIP OF INK AND WRITE ACROSS THE PAPER.
Mr. Pinto, then, taking a gray receipt-stamp out of his blue leather
pocket-book, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process; and the
hand then wrote across the receipt-stamp, went across the table and
shook hands with Pinto, and then, as if waving him an adieu, vanished in
the direction of the ceiling.
There was the paper before me, wet with the ink. There was the pen
which THE HAND had used. Does anybody doubt me? I HAVE THAT PEN NOW. A
cedar-stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of Gillott's
pens. It is in my inkstand now, I tell you. Anybody may see it. The
handwriting on the check, for such the document was, was the writing
of a female. It ran thus:--“London, midnight, March 31, 1862. Pay
the bearer one thousand and fitty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To Messrs.
Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London.”
“Noblest and best of women!” said Pinto, kissing the sheet of paper with
much reverence. “My good Mr. Roundabout, I suppose you do not question
THAT signature?”
Indeed, the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., is known to be one of
the richest in Europe, and as for the Countess Rachel, she was known to
be the chief manager of that enormously wealthy establishment. There was
only one little difficulty, THE COUNTESS RACHEL DIED LAST OCTOBER.
I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the paper to Pinto with
a sneer.
“C'est a brendre ou a laisser,” he said with some heat. “You literary
men are all imbrudent; but I did not tink you such a fool wie dis. Your
box is not worth twenty pound, and I offer you a tausend because I know
you want money to pay dat rascal Tom's college bills.” (This strange man
actually knew that my scapegrace Tom has been a source of great expense
and annoyance to me.) “You see money costs me nothing, and you refuse
to take it! Once, twice; will you take this check in exchange for your
trumpery snuff-box?”
What could I do? My poor granny's legacy was valuable and dear to me,
but after all a thousand guineas are not to be had every day. “Be it a
bargain,” said I. “Shall we have a glass of wine on it?” says Pinto; and
to this proposal I also unwillingly acceded, reminding him, by the way,
that he had not yet told me the story of the headless man.
“Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right just now, when she said she was not my
first love. 'Twas one of those banale expressions” (here Mr. P. blushed
once more) “which we use to women. We tell each she is our first
passion. They reply with a similar illusory formula. No man is any
woman's first love; no woman any man's. We are in love in our nurse's
arms, and women coquette with their eyes before their tongue can form a
word. How could your lovely relative love me? I was far, far too old for
her. I am older than I look. I am so old that you would not believe my
age were I to tell you. I have loved many and many a woman before your
relative. It has not always been fortunate for them to love me. Ah,
Sophronia! Round the dreadful circus where you fell, and whence I was
dragged corpse-like by the heels, there sat multitudes more savage than
the lions which mangled your sweet form! Ah, tenez! when we marched to
the terrible stake together at Valladolid--the Protestant and the J--
But away with memory! Boy! it was happy for thy grandam that she loved
me not.
“During that strange period,” he went on, “when the teeming Time was
great with the revolution that was speedily to be born, I was on a
mission in Paris with my excellent, my maligned friend Cagliostro.
Mesmer was one of our band. I seemed to occupy but an obscure rank in
it: though, as you know, in secret societies the humble man may be a
chief and director--the ostensible leader but a puppet moved by unseen
hands. Never mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind my age.
It boots not to tell it: why shall I expose myself to your scornful
incredulity--or reply to your questions in words that are familiar to
you, but which yet you cannot understand? Words are symbols of things
which you know, or of things which you don't know. If you don't know
them, to speak is idle.” (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly
thirty-eight minutes, about physics, metaphysics, language, the origin
and destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and, to
relieve my ennui, drank a half glass or so of wine.) “LOVE, friend, is
the fountain of youth! It may not happen to me once--once in an age:
but when I love, then I am young. I loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde,
Bathilde, I loved thee--ah, how fondly! Wine, I say, more wine! Love is
ever young. I was a boy at the little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel--the
fair, the fond, the fickle, ah, the false!” The strange old man's agony
was here really terrific, and he showed himself much more agitated than
he had been when speaking about my gr-ndm-th-r.
“I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to her in the language
of all countries, and tell her the lore of all ages. I could trace the
nursery legends which she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper
to her the darkling mysteries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her
the wild chorus that rang in the dishevelled Eleusinian revel: I could
tell her and I would, the watchword never known but to one woman, the
Saban Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon--You
don't attend. Psha! you have drunk too much wine!” Perhaps I may as
well own that I was NOT attending, for he had been carrying on for about
fifty-seven minutes; and I don't like a man to have ALL the talk to
himself.
“Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of Masonry. In
early, early days I loved, I married a girl fair as Blanche, who, too,
was tormented by curiosity, who, too, would peep into my closet--into
the only secret I guarded from her. A dreadful fate befell poor Fatima.
An ACCIDENT shortened her life. Poor thing! she had a foolish sister who
urged her on. I always told her to beware of Ann. She died. They said
her brothers killed me. A gross falsehood. AM I dead? If I were, could I
pledge you in this wine?”
“Was your name,” I asked, quite bewildered, “was your name, pray, then,
ever Blueb----?”
“Hush! the waiter will overhear you. Methought we were speaking of
Blanche de Bechamel. I loved her, young man. My pearls, and diamonds,
and treasure, my wit, my wisdom, my passion, I flung them all into
the child's lap. I was a fool. Was strong Samson not as weak as I? Was
Solomon the Wise much better when Balkis wheedled him. I said to the
king--But enough of that, I spake of Blanche de Bechamel.
“Curiosity was the poor child's foible. I could see, as I talked to her.
that her thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, my friend, have been absent
once or twice to-night). To know the secret of Masonry was the wretched
child's mad desire. With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she strove
to coax it from me--from ME--ha! ha!
“I had an apprentice--the son of a dear friend, who died by my side at
Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose army I happened to be, suffered a
dreadful defeat for neglecting my advice. The young Chevalier Goby de
Mouchy was glad enough to serve as my clerk, and help in some chemical
experiments in which I was engaged with my friend Dr. Mesmer. Bathilde
saw this young man. Since women were, has it not been their business to
smile and deceive, to fondle and lure? Away! From the very first it has
been so!” And as my companion spoke, he looked as wicked as the serpent
that coiled round the tree, and hissed a poisoned counsel to the first
woman.
“One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche. She was radiant:
she was wild with spirits: a saucy triumph blazed in her blue eyes. She
talked, she rattled in her childish way. She uttered, in the course of
her rhapsody, a hint--an intimation--so terrible that the truth flashed
across me in a moment. Did I ask her? She would lie to me. But I know
how to make falsehood impossible. Add I ORDERED HER TO GO TO SLEEP.”
At this moment the clock (after its previous convulsions) sounded
TWELVE. And as the new Editor* of the Cornhill Magazine--and HE, I
promise you, won't stand any nonsense--will only allow seven pages, I am
obliged to leave off at THE VERY MOST INTERESTING POINT OF THE STORY.
* Mr. Thackeray retired from the Editorship of the Cornhill
Magazine in March, 1862.