I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF
My father stood in the lobby of the Opera, holding a sort of open
court, it appeared to me, for a cluster of gentlemen hung round him;
and I had presently to bow to greetings which were rather of a kind to
flatter me, leading me to presume that he was respected as well as
marvelled at. The names of Mr. Serjeant Wedderburn, Mr. Jennings, Lord
Alton, Sir Weeton Slater, Mr. Monterez Williams, Admiral Loftus, the
Earl of Witlington, were among those which struck my ear, and struck me
as good ones. I could not perceive anything of the air of cynical
satellites in these gentlemen—on the contrary, they were cordially
deferential. I felt that he was encompassed by undoubted gentlemen, and
my warmer feelings to my father returned when I became sensible of the
pleasant sway he held over the circle, both in speaking and listening.
His sympathetic smile and semi-droop of attention; his readiness, when
occasion demanded it, to hit the key of the subject and help it on with
the right word; his air of unobtrusive appreciation; his sensibility to
the moment when the run of conversation depended upon him—showed
inimitable art coming of natural genius; and he did not lose a shade of
his superior manner the while. Mr. Serjeant Wedderburn, professionally
voluble, a lively talker, brimming with anecdote, but too sparkling,
too prompt, too full of personal relish of his point, threw my father's
urbane supremacy into marked relief; and so in another fashion did the
Earl of Witlington, 'a youth in the season of guffaws,' as Jorian
DeWitt described him, whom a jest would seize by the throat, shaking
his sapling frame. Jorian strolled up to us goutily. No efforts of my
father's would induce him to illustrate his fame for repartee, so it
remained established. 'Very pretty waxwork,' he said to me of our
English beauties swimming by. 'Now, those women, young Richmond, if
they were inflammable to the fiftieth degree, that is, if they had the
fiftieth part of a Frenchwoman in them, would have canvassed society on
the great man's account long before this, and sent him to the top like
a bubble. He wastes his time on them. That fat woman he's bowing to is
Viscountess Sedley, a porcine empress, widow of three, with a soupçon
of bigamy to flavour them. She mounted from a grocer's shop, I am told.
Constitution has done everything for that woman. So it will
everywhere—it beats the world! Now he's on all-fours to Lady Rachel
Stokes, our pure aristocracy; she walks as if she were going through a
doorway, and couldn't risk an eyelid. I'd like to see her tempting St.
Anthony. That's little Wreckham's wife: she's had as many adventures as
Gil Blas before he entered the Duke of Lerma's service.' He reviewed
several ladies, certainly not very witty when malignant, as I
remembered my father to have said of him. 'The style of your
Englishwoman is to keep the nose exactly at one elevation, to show
you're born to it. They daren't run a gamut, these women. These
Englishwomen are a fiction! The model of them is the nursery-miss, but
they're like the names of true lovers cut on the bark of a tree—awfully
stiff and longitudinal with the advance of time. We've our Lady
Jezebels, my boy! They're in the pay of the bishops, or the police, to
make vice hideous. The rest do the same for virtue, and get their pay
for it somewhere, I don't doubt; perhaps from the newspapers, to keep
up the fiction. I tell you, these Englishwomen have either no life at
all in them, or they're nothing but animal life. 'Gad, how they dizen
themselves! They've no other use for their fingers. The wealth of this
country's frightful!'
Jorian seemed annoyed that he could not excite me to defend my
countrywomen; but I had begun to see that there was no necessity for
the sanguine to encounter the bilious on their behalf, and was myself
inclined to be critical. Besides I was engaged in watching my father,
whose bearing toward the ladies he accosted did not dissatisfy my
critical taste, though I had repeated fears of seeing him overdo it. He
summoned me to an introduction to the Countess Szezedy, a merry little
Hungarian dame.
'So,' said she at once, speaking German, 'you are to marry the romantic
head, the Princess Ottilia of Eppenwelzen! I know her well. I have met
her in Vienna. Schone Seele, and bas bleu! It's just those that are won
with a duel. I know Prince Otto too.' She prattled away, and asked me
whether the marriage was to take place in the Summer. I was too
astounded to answer.
'No date is yet fixed,' my father struck in.
'It's the talk of London,' she said.
Before I could demand explanations of my father with regard to this
terrible rumour involving Ottilia, I found myself in the box of the
City widow, Lady Sampleman, a grievous person, of the complexion of the
autumnal bramble-leaf, whose first words were: 'Ah! the young suitor!
And how is our German princess?' I had to reply that the theme was more
of German princes than princesses in England. 'Oh! but,' said she, 'you
are having a—shall I call it—national revenge on them? “I will take one
of your princesses,” says you; and as soon as said done! I'm dying for
a sight of her portrait. Captain DeWitt declares her heavenly—I mean,
he says she is fair and nice, quite a lady—that of course! And never
mind her not being rich. You can do the decoration to the match. H'm,'
she perused my features; 'pale! Lovelorn? Excuse an old friend of your
father's. One of his very oldest, I'd say, if it didn't impugn. As
such, proud of your alliance. I am. I speak of it
everywhere—everywhere.'
Here she dramatized the circulation of the gossip. 'Have you heard the
news? No, what? Fitz-George's son marries a princess of the German
realm. Indeed! True as gospel. And how soon? In a month; and now you
will see the dear, neglected man command the Court....'
I looked at my father: I felt stifling with confusion and rage. He
leant over to her, imparting some ecstatic news about a great lady
having determined to call on her to regulate the affairs of an
approaching grand Ball, and under cover of this we escaped.
'If it were not,' said he, 'for the Chassediane—you are aware, Richie,
poor Jorian is lost to her?—he has fallen at her quicksilver feet. She
is now in London. Half the poor fellow's income expended in bouquets!
Her portrait, in the character of the widow Lefourbe, has become a part
of his dressing apparatus; he shaves fronting her playbill. His first
real affaire de coeur, and he is forty-five! So he is taken in the
stomach. That is why love is such a dangerous malady for middle age. As
I said, but for Jenny Chassediane, our Sampleman would be the fortune
for Jorian. I have hinted it on both sides. Women, Richie, are cleverer
than the illustrious Lord Nelson in not seeing what their inclinations
decline to see, and Jorian would do me any service in the world except
that one. You are restless, my son?'
I begged permission to quit the house, and wait for him outside. He, in
return, begged me most urgently to allow myself to be introduced to
Lady Edbury, the stepmother of Lord Destrier, now Marquis of Edbury;
and, using conversational pressure, he adjured me not to slight this
lady, adding, with more significance than the words conveyed, 'I am
taking the tide, Richie.' The tide took me, and I bowed to a lady of
impressive languor, pale and young, with pleasant manners, showing her
character in outline, like a glove on the hand, but little of its
quality. She accused my father of coming direct from 'that person's'
box. He replied that he never forsook old friends. 'You should,' was
her rejoinder. It suggested to me an image of one of the sister Fates
cutting a thread.
My heart sank when, from Lady Edbury too, I heard the allusion to
Germany and its princess. 'Some one told me she was dark?'
'Blonde,' my father corrected the report.
Lady Edbury 'thought it singular for a German woman of the Blood to be
a brunette. They had not much dark mixture among them, particularly in
the North. Her name? She had forgotten the name of the princess.'
My father repeated: 'The Princess Ottilia, Princess of
Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.'
'Brunette, you say?'
'The purest blonde.'
'A complexion?'
'A complexion to dazzle the righteous!'
Lady Edbury threw a flying glance in a mirror: 'The unrighteous you
leave to us then?'
They bandied the weariful shuttlecock of gallantry. I bowed and fled.
My excuse was that I had seen Anna Penrhys in an upper tier of boxes,
and I made my way to her, doubting how I should be welcomed. 'The happy
woman is a German princess, we hear!' she set me shivering. Her welcome
was perfectly unreserved and friendly.
She asked the name of the lady whose box I had quitted, and after
bending her opera-glass on it for a moment, said, with a certain air of
satisfaction, 'She is young'; which led me to guess that Lady Edbury
was reputed to be Anna's successor; but why the latter should be
flattered by the former's youth was one of the mysteries for me then.
Her aunt was awakened from sleep by the mention of my name. 'Is the man
here?' she exclaimed, starting. Anna smiled, and talked to me of my
father, saying, that she was glad to see me at his right hand, for he
had a hard battle to fight. She spoke of him with affectionate interest
in his fortunes; no better proof of his generosity as well as hers
could have been given me. I promised her heartily I would not be guilty
of letting our intimacy drop, and handed the ladies down to the
crush-room, where I saw my father leading Lady Edbury to her carriage,
much observed. Destrier, the young marquis, coming in to meet the
procession from other haunts, linked his arm to his friend
Witlington's, and said something in my hearing of old 'Duke Fitz,'
which provoked, I fancied, signs of amusement equivalent to tittering
in a small ring of the select assembly. Lady Sampleman's carriage was
called. 'Another victim,' said a voice. Anna Penrhys walked straight
out to find her footman and carriage for herself.
I stood alone in the street, wondering, fretting, filled with a variety
of ugly sensations, when my father joined me humming an air of the
opera. 'I was looking for Jorian, Richie. He had our Sampleman under
his charge. He is off to the Chassediane. Well! And well, Richie, you
could not bear the absence from your dada? You find me in full sail on
the tide. I am at home, if our fortunes demand it, in a little German
principality, but there is,' he threw out his chest, 'a breadth in
London; nowhere else do I breathe with absolute freedom—so largely: and
this is my battlefield. By the way, Lady Edbury accounts you complete;
which is no more to say than that she is a woman of taste. The
instance: she positively would not notice that you wear a dress-coat of
a foreign cut. Correct it to-morrow; my tailor shall wait on you. I
meant to point out to you that when a London woman has not taken note
of that, the face and the man have made the right impression on her.
Richie, dear boy, how shall I speak the delight I have in seeing you!
My arm in yours, old Richie! strolling home from the Fashion: this
seems to me what I dreamt of! All in sound health at the Grange? She
too, the best of women?'
'I have come on very particular business,' I interposed briefly.
He replied, 'I am alive to you, Richie; speak.'
'The squire has seen my bankers' book. He thinks I've been drawing
rather wildly: no doubt he's right. He wants some sort of explanation.
He consents to an interview with you. I have come to ask you to go down
to him, sir.'
'To-morrow morning, without an hour's delay, my dear boy. Very
agreeable will be the sight of old Riversley. And in the daylight!'
'He prefers to meet you at Bulsted. Captain Bulsted offers his house
for the purpose. I have to warn you, sir, that we stand in a very
exceptional position. The squire insists upon having a full account of
the money rendered to him.'
'I invite him to London, Richie. I refer him to Dettermain and Newson.
I request him to compute the value of a princess.'
'You are aware that he will not come to your invitation.'
'Tell me, then, how is he to understand what I have established by the
expenditure, my son? I refer him to Dettermain and Newson.'
'But you must know that he sets his face against legal proceedings
involving exposure.'
'But surely, Richie, exposure is the very thing we court. The innocent,
the unjustly treated, court it. We would be talked about; you shall
hear of us! And into the bargain an hereditary princess. Upon my faith,
Mr. Beltham, I think you have mighty little to complain of.'
My temper was beginning to chafe at the curb. 'As regards any feeling
about the money, personally, sir, you know I have none. But I must
speak of one thing. I have heard to-night, I confess with as much
astonishment as grief, the name... I could not have guessed that I
should hear the princess's name associated with mine, and quite
openly.'
'As a matter of course.' He nodded, and struck out a hand in wavy
motion.
'Well, sir, if you can't feel for her or her family, be good enough to
think of me, and remember that I object to it.'
'For you all,' said he, buoyantly; 'I feel for you all, and I will act
for you all. I bring the princess to your arms, my dear boy. You have
written me word that the squire gives her a royal dowry—have you not?
My combinations permit of no escape to any one of you. Nay, 'tis done.
I think for you—I feel for you—I act for you. By heaven, you shall be
happy! Sigh, Richie, sigh; your destiny is now entrusted to me!'
'I daresay I'm wasting my breath, sir, but I protest against false
pretences. You know well that you have made use of the princess's name
for your own purposes.'
'Most indubitably, Richie, I have; and are they not yours? I must have
social authority to succeed in our main enterprise. Possibly the
princess's name serves for a temporary chandelier to cast light on us.
She belongs to us. For her sake, we are bringing the house she enters
into order. Thus, Richie, I could tell Mr. Beltham: you and he supply
the money, the princess the name, and I the energy, the skilfulness,
and the estimable cause. I pay the princess for the use of her name
with the dowry, which is royal; I pay you with the princess, who is
royal too; and I, Richie, am paid by your happiness most royally.
Together, it is past contest that we win.—Here, my little one,' he said
to a woman, and dropped a piece of gold into her hand, 'on condition
that you go straight home.' The woman thanked him and promised. 'As I
was observing, we are in the very tide of success. Curious! I have a
slight inclination to melancholy. Success, quotha? Why, hundreds before
us have paced the identical way homeward at night under these lamps
between the mansions and the park. The bare thought makes them resemble
a double line of undertakers. The tomb is down there at the end of
them—costly or not. At the age of four, on my birthday, I was informed
that my mother lay dead in her bed. I remember to this day my
astonishment at her not moving. “Her heart is broken,” my old nurse
said. To me she appeared intact. Her sister took possession of me, and
of her papers, and the wedding-ring—now in the custody of Dettermain
and Newson—together with the portraits of both my parents; and she,
poor soul, to sustain me, as I verily believe—she had a great idea of
my never asking unprofitably for anything in life—bartered the most
corroborative of the testificatory documents, which would now make the
establishment of my case a comparatively light task. Have I never
spoken to you of my boyhood? My maternal uncle was a singing-master and
master of elocution. I am indebted to him for the cultivation of my
voice. He taught me an effective delivery of my sentences. The English
of a book of his called _The Speaker_ is still to my mind a model of
elegance. Remittances of money came to him from an unknown quarter;
and, with a break or two, have come ever since up to this period. My
old nurse—heaven bless her—resumed the occupation of washing. I have
stood by her tub, Richie, blowing bubbles and listening to her
prophecies of my exalted fortune for hours. On my honour, I doubt, I
seriously doubt, if I have ever been happier. I depend just now—I have
to avow it to you—slightly upon stimulants... of a perfectly innocuous
character. Mrs. Waddy will allow me a pint of champagne. The truth is,
Richie—you see these two or three poor pensioners of mine, honi soit
qui mal y pense—my mother has had hard names thrown at her. The stones
of these streets cry out to me to have her vindicated. I am not tired;
but I want my wine.'
He repeated several times before he reached his housedoor, that he
wanted his wine, in a manner to be almost alarming. His unwonted effort
of memory, the singular pictures of him which it had flashed before me,
and a sort of impatient compassion, made me forget my wrath. I saw him
take his restorative at one draught. He lay down on a sofa, and his
valet drew his boots off and threw a cloak over him. Lying there, he
wished me gaily good-night. Mrs. Waddy told me that he had adopted this
system of sleeping for the last month. 'Bless you, as many people call
on him at night now as in the day,' she said; and I was induced to
suppose he had some connection with the Press. She had implicit faith
in his powers of constitution, and would affirm, that he had been the
death of dozens whom the attraction had duped to imitate his habits.
'He is now a Field-Marshal on his campaign.' She betrayed a twinkle of
humour. He must himself have favoured her with that remark. The report
of the house-door frequently shutting in the night suggested the
passage of his aides-de-camp.
Early in the morning, I found him pacing through the open doors of the
dining-room and the library dictating to a secretary at a desk, now and
then tossing a word to Dettermain and Newson's chief clerk. The floor
was strewn with journals. He wore Hessian boots; a voluminous black
cloak hung loosely from his shoulders.
'I am just settling the evening papers,' he said after greeting me,
with a show of formality in his warmth; and immediately added, 'That
will do, Mr. Jopson. Put in a note—“Mr. Harry Lepel Richmond of
Riversley and Twn-y-glas, my son, takes no step to official distinction
in his native land save through the ordinary Parliamentary channels.”
Your pardon, Richie; presently. I am replying to a morning paper.'
'What's this? Why print my name?' I cried.
'Merely the correction of an error. I have to insist, my dear boy, that
you claim no privileges: you are apart from them. Mr. Jopson, I beseech
you, not a minute's delay in delivering that. Fetch me from the
printer's my pamphlet this afternoon. Mr. Jacobs, my compliments to
Dettermain and Newson: I request them to open proceedings instanter,
and let the world know of it. Good-morning, gentlemen.'
And now, turning to me, my father fenced me with the whole weight of
his sententious volubility, which was the force of a river. Why did my
name appear in the papers? Because I was his son. But he assured me
that he carefully separated me from public companionship with his
fortunes, and placed me on the side of my grandfather, as a plain
gentleman of England, the heir of the most colossal wealth possible in
the country.
'I dis-sociate you from me, Richie, do you see? I cause it to be
declared that you need, on no account, lean on me. Jopson will bring
you my pamphlet—my Declaration of Rights—to peruse. In the Press, in
Literature, at Law, and on social ground, I meet the enemy, and I claim
my own; by heaven, I do! And I will down to the squire for a
distraction, if you esteem it necessary, certainly. Half-a-dozen words
to him. Why, do you maintain him to be insensible to a title for you?
No, no. And ask my friends. I refer him to any dozen of my friends to
convince him I have the prize almost in my possession. Why, dear boy, I
have witnesses, living witnesses, to the ceremony. Am I, tell me, to be
deprived of money now, once again, for the eleventh time? Oh! And put
aside my duty to you, I protest I am bound in duty to her who bore
me—you have seen her miniature: how lovely that dear woman was! how
gentle!—bound in duty to her to clear her good name. This does not
affect you...'
'Oh, but it does,' he allowed me to plead.
'Ay, through your love for your dada.'
He shook me by both hands. I was touched with pity, and at the same
time in doubt whether it was not an actor that swayed me; for I was
discontented, and could not speak my discontent; I was overborne,
overflowed. His evasion of the matter of my objections relating to the
princess I felt to be a palpable piece of artfulness, but I had to
acknowledge to myself that I knew what his argument would be, and how
overwhelmingly his defence of it would spring forth. My cowardice
shrank from provoking a recurrence to the theme. In fact, I submitted
consciously to his masterful fluency and emotional power, and so I was
carried on the tide with him, remaining in London several days to
witness that I was not the only one. My father, admitting that money
served him in his conquest of society, and defying any other man to do
as much with it as he did, replied to a desperate insinuation of mine,
'This money I spend I am actually putting out to interest as much as,
or more than, your grandad.' He murmured confidentially, 'I have
alarmed the Government. Indeed, I have warrant for saying I am in
communication with its agents. They are bribing me; they are positively
bribing me, Richie. I receive my stipend annually. They are mighty
discreet. So am I. But I push them hard. I take what they offer: I
renounce none of my claims.'
Janet wrote that it would be prudent for me to return.
'I am prepared,' my father said. 'I have only to meet Mr. Beltham in a
room—I stipulate that it shall be between square walls—to win him. The
squire to back us, Richie, we have command of the entire world. His
wealth, and my good cause, and your illustrious union—by the way, it is
announced definitely in this morning's paper.'
Dismayed, I asked what was announced.
'Read,' said he. 'This will be something to hand to Mr. Beltham at our
meeting. I might trace it to one of the embassies, Imperial or Royal.
No matter—there it is.'
I read a paragraph in which Ottilia's name and titles were set down;
then followed mine and my wealthy heirship, and—woe was me in the
perusing of it!—a roundabout vindication of me as one not likely to be
ranked as the first of English commoners who had gained the hand of an
hereditary foreign princess, though it was undoubtedly in the light of
a commoner that I was most open to the congratulations of my countrymen
upon my unparalleled felicity. A display of historical erudition cited
the noble inferiors by birth who had caught princesses to their
arms—Charles, Humphrey, William, John. Under this list, a later Harry!
The paragraph closed by fixing the nuptials to take place before the
end of the Season.
I looked at my father to try a struggle with him. The whole man was
efflorescent.
'Can't it be stopped?' I implored him.
He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions of
the mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative
beating down opposition.
'Things printed can never be stopped, Richie. Our Jorian compares them
to babies baptized. They have a soul from that moment, and go on for
ever!—an admirable word of Jorian's. And a word to you, Richie. Will
you swear to me by the veracity of your lover's heart, that paragraph
affords you no satisfaction? He cannot swear it!' my father exclaimed,
seeing me swing my shoulder round, and he made me feel that it would
have been a false oath if I had sworn it. But I could have sworn, that
I had rather we two were at the bottom of the sea than that it should
come under the princess's eyes. I read it again. It was in print. It
looked like reality. It was at least the realization of my dream. But
this played traitor and accused me of being crowned with no more than a
dream. The sole practical thing I could do was to insist on our
starting for Riversley immediately, to make sure of my own position.
'Name your hour, Richie,' my father said confidently: and we waited.
A rather plainer view of my father's position, as I inclined to think,
was afforded to me one morning at his breakfast-table, by a
conversation between him and Jorian DeWitt, who brought me a twisted
pink note from Mdlle. Chassediane, the which he delivered with the air
of a dog made to disgorge a bone, and he was very cool to me indeed.
The cutlets of Alphonse were subject to snappish criticism. 'I assume,'
he said, 'the fellow knew I was coming?'
'He saw it in my handwriting of yesterday,' replied my father. 'But be
just to him, acknowledge that he is one of the few that perform their
daily duties with a tender conscience.'
'This English climate has bedevilled the fellow! He peppers his dishes
like a mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.'
'Ring him up, ring him up, Jorian. All I beg of you is not to disgust
him with life, for he quits any service in the world to come to me,
and, in fact, he suits me.'
'Exactly so: you spoil him.'
My father shrugged. 'The state of the case is, that your stomach is
growing delicate, friend Jorian.'
'The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener,
and consequently my stomach knows its business.'
'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.'
'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.'
'Say, porridge!'
'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge.'
'Careme might have confessed to the same!'
'With this difference,' cried Jorian in a heat, 'that he would never
have allowed the thought of any of your barbarous messes to occur to a
man at table. Let me tell you, Roy, you astonish me: up till now I have
never known you guilty of the bad taste of defending a bad dish on your
own board.'
'Then you will the more readily pardon me, Jorian.'
'Oh, I pardon you,' Jorian sneered, tripped to the carpet by such
ignoble mildness. 'A breakfast is no great loss.'
My father assured him he would have a serious conversation with
Alphonse, for whom he apologized by saying that Alphonse had not, to
his knowledge, served as hospital cook anywhere, and was therefore
quite possibly not sufficiently solicitous for appetites and digestions
of invalids.
Jorian threw back his head as though to discharge a spiteful sarcasm
with good aim; but turning to me, said, 'Harry, the thing must be done;
your father must marry. Notoriety is the season for a pick and choice
of the wealthiest and the loveliest. I refuse to act the part of
warming-pan any longer; I refuse point blank. It's not a personal
feeling on my part; my advice is that of a disinterested friend, and I
tell you candidly, Roy, set aside the absurd exhibition of my dancing
attendance on that last rose of Guildhall,—egad, the alderman went like
Summer, and left us the very picture of a fruity Autumn,—I say you
can't keep her hanging on the tree of fond expectation for ever. She'll
drop.'
'Catch her, Jorian; you are on guard.'
'Upwards of three hundred thousand, if a penny, Roy Richmond! Who? I? I
am not a fortune-hunter.'
'Nor am I, friend Jorian.'
'No, it's because you're not thorough: you's fall between the stools.'
My father remarked that he should visit this upon Mr. Alphonse.
'You shook off that fine Welsh girl, and she was in your hand—the act
of a madman!' Jorian continued. 'You're getting older: the day will
come when you're a flat excitement. You know the first Lady Edbury
spoilt one of your best chances when you had the market. Now you're
trifling with the second. She's the head of the Light Brigade, but you
might fix her down, if she's not too much in debt. You're not at the
end of your run, I dare say. Only, my good Roy, let me tell you, in
life you mustn't wait for the prize of the race till you touch the
goal—if you prefer metaphor. You generally come forward about every
seven years or so. Add on another seven, and women'll begin to think.
You can't beat Time, mon Roy.'
'So,' said my father, 'I touch the goal, and women begin to think, and
I can't beat time to them. Jorian, your mind is in a state of
confusion. I do not marry.'
'Then, Roy Richmond, hear what a friend says...'
'I do not marry, Jorian, and you know my reasons.'
'Sentiments!'
'They are a part of my life.'
'Just as I remarked, you are not thorough. You have genius and courage
out of proportion, and you are a dead failure, Roy; because, no sooner
have you got all Covent Garden before you for the fourth or fifth time,
than in go your hands into your pockets, and you say—No, there's an
apple I can't have, so I'll none of these; and, by the way, the apple
must be tolerably withered by this time. And you know perfectly well
(for you don't lack common sense at a shaking, Roy Richmond), that
you're guilty of simple madness in refusing to make the best of your
situation. You haven't to be taught what money means. With money—and a
wife to take care of it, mind you—you are pre-eminently the man for
which you want to be recognized. Without it—Harry 'll excuse me, I must
speak plainly—you're a sort of a spectacle of a bob-cherry, down on
your luck, up on your luck, and getting dead stale and never bitten; a
familiar curiosity.'
Jorian added, 'Oh, by Jove! it's not nice to think of.' My father said:
'Harry, I am sure, will excuse you for talking, in your extreme
friendliness, of matters that he and I have not—and they interest us
deeply—yet thought fit to discuss. And you may take my word for it,
Jorian, that I will give Alphonse his medical dose. I am quite of your
opinion that the kings of cooks require it occasionally. Harry will
inform us of Mdlle. Chassediane's commands.'
The contents of the letter permitted me to read it aloud. She desired
to know how she could be amused on the Sunday.
'We will undertake it,' said my father. 'I depute the arrangements to
you, Jorian. Respect the prejudices, and avoid collisions, that is
all.'
Captain DeWitt became by convenient stages cheerful, after the pink
slip of paper had been made common property, and from a
seriously-advising friend, in his state of spite, relapsed to the idle
and shadow-like associate, when pleased. I had to thank him for the
gift of fresh perceptions. Surely it would be as well if my father
could get a woman of fortune to take care of him!
We had at my request a consultation with Dettermain and Newson on the
eve of the journey to Riversley, Temple and Jorian DeWitt assisting.
Strange documentary evidence was unfolded and compared with the date of
a royal decree: affidavits of persons now dead; a ring, the ring; fans,
and lace, and handkerchiefs with notable initials; jewelry stamped 'To
the Divine Anastasia' from an adoring Christian name: old brown letters
that shrieked 'wife' when 'charmer' seemed to have palled; oaths of
fidelity ran through them like bass notes. Jorian held up the
discoloured sheets of ancient paper saying:
'Here you behold the mummy of the villain Love.' Such love as it
was—the love of the privileged butcher for the lamb. The burden of the
letters, put in epigram, was rattlesnake and bird. A narrative of
Anastasia's sister, Elizabeth, signed and sealed, with names of
witnesses appended, related in brief bald English the history of the
events which had killed her. It warmed pathetically when dwelling on
the writer's necessity to part with letters and papers of greater
moment, that she might be enabled to sustain and educate her sister's
child. She named the certificate; she swore to the tampering with
witnesses. The number and exact indication of the house where the
ceremony took place was stated—a house in Soho;—the date was given, and
the incident on that night of the rape of the beautiful Miss Armett by
mad Lord Beaumaris at the theatre doors, aided by masked ruffians,
after Anastasia's performance of Zamira.
'There are witnesses I know to be still living, Mr. Temple,' my father
said, seeing the young student-at-law silent and observant. 'One of
them I have under my hand; I feed him. Listen to this.'
He read two or three insufferable sentences from one of the
love-epistles, and broke down. I was ushered aside by a member of the
firm to inspect an instrument prepared to bind me as surety for the
costs of the appeal. I signed it. We quitted the attorney's office
convinced (I speak of Temple and myself) that we had seen the shadow of
something.