The wreck cast back from Charybdis.
/Souviens-toi de to Gabrielle/.
Guy Darrell turned hurriedly from the large house in the great square,
and, more and more absorbed in revery, he wandered out of his direct way
homeward, clear and broad though it was, and did not rouse himself till
he felt, as it were, that the air had grown darker; and looking vaguely
round, he saw that he had strayed into a dim maze of lanes and passages.
He paused under one of the rare lamp-posts, gathering up his
recollections of the London he had so long quitted, and doubtful for a
moment or two which turn to take. Just then, up from an alley fronting
him at right angles, came suddenly, warily, a tall, sinewy, ill-boding
tatterdemalion figure, and, seeing Darrell's face under the lamp, halted
abrupt at the mouth of the narrow passage from which it had emerged,
--a dark form filling up the dark aperture. Does that ragged wayfarer
recognize a foe by the imperfect ray of the lamplight? or is he a mere
vulgar footpad, who is doubting whether he should spring upon a prey?
Hostile his look, his gestures, the sudden cowering down of the strong
frame as if for a bound; but still he is irresolute. What awes him?
What awes the tiger, who would obey his blood-instinct without fear,
in his rush on the Negro, the Hindoo; but who halts and hesitates at the
sight of the white man, the lordly son of Europe? Darrell's eye was
turned towards the dark passage, towards the dark figure,--carelessly,
neither recognizing nor fearing nor defying,--carelessly, as at any
harmless object in crowded streets and at broad day. But while that
eye was on him, the tatterdemalion halted; and indeed, whatever his
hostility, or whatever his daring, the sight of Darrell took him by so
sudden a surprise that he could not at once re-collect his thoughts, and
determine how to approach the quiet unconscious man, who, in reach of his
spring, fronted his overwhelming physical strength with the habitual air
of dignified command. His first impulse was that of violence; his second
impulse curbed the first. But Darrell now turns quickly, and walks
straight on; the figure quits the mouth of the passage, and follows with
a long and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Darrell. With what
intent? A fierce one, perhaps,--for the man's face is sinister, and his
state evidently desperate,--when there emerges unexpectedly from an ugly
looking court or cul-de-sac, just between Darrell and his pursuer, a
slim, long-backed, buttoned-up, weazel-faced policeman. The policeman
eyes the tatterdemalion instinctively, then turns his glance towards the
solitary defenceless gentleman in advance, and walks on, keeping himself
between the two. The tatterdemalion stifles an impatient curse. Be his
purpose force, be it only supplication, be it colloquy of any kind,
impossible to fulfil it while that policeman is there. True that in his
powerful hands he could have clutched that slim, long-backed officer, and
broken him in two as a willow-wand. But that officer is the Personation
of Law, and can stalk through a legion of tatterdemalions as a ferret may
glide through a barn full of rats. The prowler feels he is suspected.
Unknown as yet to the London police, he has no desire to invite their
scrutiny. He crosses the way; he falls back; he follows from afar. The
policeman may yet turn away before the safer streets of the metropolis be
gained. No; the cursed Incarnation of Law, with eyes in its slim back,
continues its slow strides at the heels of the unsuspicious Darrell. The
more solitary defiles are already passed,--now that dim lane, with its
dead wall on one side. By the dead wall skulks the prowler; on the other
side still walks the Law. Now--alas for the prowler!--shine out the
throughfares, no longer dim nor deserted,--Leicester Square, the
Haymarket, Pall Mall, Carlton Gardens; Darrell is at his door. The
policeman turns sharply round. There, at the corner near the learned
Club-house, halts the tatterdemalion. Towards the tatterdemalion the
policeman now advances quickly. The tatterdemalion is quicker still;
fled like a guilty thought.
Back, back, back into that maze of passages and courts, back to the mouth
of that black alley. There he halts again. Look at him. He has arrived
in London but that very night, after an absence of more than four years.
He has arrived from the sea-side on foot; see, his shoes are worn into
holes. He has not yet found a shelter for the night. He has been
directed towards that quarter, thronged with adventurers, native and
foreign, for a shelter, safe, if squalid. It is somewhere near that
court at the mouth of which he stands. He looks round: the policeman is
baffled; the coast clear. He steals forth, and pauses under the same
gaslight as that under which Guy Darrell had paused before,--under the
same gaslight, under the same stars. From some recess in his rags he
draws forth a large, distained, distended pocket-book,--last relic of
sprucer days,--leather of dainty morocco, once elaborately tooled, patent
springs, fairy lock, fit receptacle for bank-notes, /billets-doux/,
memoranda of debts of honour, or pleasurable engagements. Now how worn,
tarnished, greasy, rascallion-like, the costly bauble! Filled with what
motley, unlovable contents: stale pawn-tickets of foreign /monts de
piete/, pledges never henceforth to be redeemed; scrawls by villanous
hands in thievish hierolgyphics; ugly implements replacing the malachite
penknife, the golden toothpick, the jewelled pencil-case, once so neatly
set within their satin lappets. Ugly implements, indeed,--a file, a
gimlet, loaded dice. Pell-mell, with such more hideous and recent
contents, dishonoured evidences of gaudier summer life,--locks of ladies'
hair, love-notes treasured mechanically, not from amorous sentiment, but
perhaps from some vague idea that they might be of use if those who gave
the locks or wrote the notes should be raised in fortune, and could buy
back the memorials of shame. Diving amidst these miscellaneous documents
and treasures, the prowler's hand rested on some old letters, in clerk-
like fair calligraphy, tied round with a dirty string, and on them, in
another and fresher writing, a scrap that contained an address,--"Samuel
Adolphus Poole, Esq., Alhambra Villa, Regent's Park." "To-morrow, Nix my
Dolly; to-morrow," muttered the tatterdemalion; "but to-night,--plague on
it, where is the other blackguard's direction? Ah, here!" And he
extracted from the thievish scrawls a peculiarly thievish-looking
hieroglyph. Now, as he lifts it up to read by the gaslight, survey him
well. Do you not know him? Is it possible? What! the brilliant
sharper! The ruffian exquisite! Jasper Losely! Can it be? Once
before, in the fields of Fawley, we beheld him out at elbows, seedy,
shabby, ragged. But then it was the decay of a foppish spendthrift,
--clothes distained, ill-assorted, yet, still of fine cloth; shoes in
holes, yet still pearl-coloured brodequins. But now it is the decay of
no foppish spendthrift: the rags are not of fine cloth; the tattered
shoes are not the brodequins. The man has fallen far below the politer
grades of knavery, in which the sharper affects the beau. And the
countenance, as we last saw it, if it had lost much of its earlier
beauty, was still incontestably handsome. What with vigour and health
and animal spirits, then on the aspect still lingered light; now from
corruption the light itself was gone. In that herculean constitution
excess of all kinds had at length forced its ravage, and the ravage was
visible in the ruined face. The once sparkling eye was dull and
bloodshot. The colours of the cheek, once clear and vivid, to which
fiery drink had only sent the blood in a warmer glow, were now of a
leaden dulness, relieved but by broken streaks of angry red, like gleams
of flame struggling through gathered smoke. The profile, once sharp and
delicate like Apollo's, was now confused in its swollen outline; a few
years more, and it would be gross as that of Silenus,--the nostrils,
distended with incipient carbuncles, which betray the gnawing fang that
alcohol fastens into the liver. Evil passions had destroyed the outlines
of the once beautiful lips, arched as a Cupid's bow. The sidelong,
lowering, villanous expression which had formerly been but occasional was
now habitual and heightened. It was the look of the bison before it
gores. It is true, however, that even yet on the countenance there
lingered the trace of that lavish favour bestowed on it by nature. An
artist would still have said, "How handsome that ragamuffin must have
been!" And true is it, also, that there was yet that about the bearing
of the man which contrasted his squalor, and seemed to say that he had
not been born to wear rags and loiter at midnight amongst the haunts of
thieves. Nay, I am not sure that you would have been as incredulous now,
if told that the wild outlaw before you had some claim by birth or by
nurture to the rank of gentleman, as you would had you seen the gay
spendthrift in his gaudy day. For then he seemed below, and now he
seemed above, the grade in which he took place. And all this made his
aspect yet more sinister, and the impression that he was dangerous yet
more profound. Muscular strength often remains to a powerful frame long
after the constitution is undermined, and Jasper Losely's frame was still
that of a formidable athlete; nay, its strength was yet more apparent now
that the shoulders and limbs had increased in bulk than when it was half-
disguised in the lissome symmetry of exquisite proportion,--less active,
less supple, less capable of endurance, but with more crushing weight in
its rush or its blow. It was the figure in which brute force seems so to
predominate that in a savage state it would have worn a crown,--the
figure which secures command and authority in all societies where force
alone gives the law. Thus, under the gaslight and under the stars, stood
the terrible animal,--a strong man imbruted; SOUVIENS-TOI DE TA
GABRIELLE." There, still uneffaced, though the gold threads are all
tarnished and ragged, are the ominous words on the silk of the she-
devil's love-token! But Jasper has now inspected the direction on the
paper he held to the lamp-light, and, satisfying himself that he was in
the right quarter, restored the paper to the bulky distended pocket-book
and walked sullenly on towards the court from which had emerged the
policeman who had crossed his prowling chase.
"It is the most infernal shame," said Losely between his grinded teeth,
"that I should be driven to these wretched dens for a lodging, while that
man, who ought to feel bound to maintain me, should be rolling in wealth,
and cottoned up in a palace. But he shall fork out. Sophy must be
hunted up. I will clothe her in rags like these. She shall sit at his
street-door. I will shame the miserly hunks. But how track the girl?
Have I no other hold over him? Can I send Dolly Poole to him? How
addled my brains are!--want of food, want of sleep. Is this the place?
Peuh!--"
Thus murmuring, he now reached the arch of the court, and was swallowed
up in its gloom. A few strides and he came into a square open space only
lighted by the skies. A house, larger than the rest, which were of the
meanest order, stood somewhat back, occupying nearly one side of the
quadrangle,--old, dingy, dilapidated. At the door of this house stood
another man, applying his latch-key to the lock. As Losely approached,
the man turned quickly, half in fear, half in menace,--a small, very
thin, impish-looking man, with peculiarly restless features that seemed
trying to run away from his face. Thin as he was, he looked all skin and
no bones, a goblin of a man whom it would not astonish you to hear could
creep through a keyhole, seeming still more shadowy and impalpable by his
slight, thin, sable dress, not of cloth, but a sort of stuff like alpaca.
Nor was that dress ragged, nor, as seen but in starlight, did it look
worn or shabby; still you had but to glance at the creature to feel that
it was a child in the same Family of Night as the ragged felon that
towered by its side. The two outlaws stared at each other. "Cutts!"
said Losely, in the old rollicking voice, but in a hoarser, rougher key,
"Cutts, my boy, here I am; welcome me!
"What? General Jas.!" returned Cutts, in a tone which was not without a
certain respectful awe, and then proceeded to pour out a series of
questions in a mysterious language, which may be thus translated and
abridged: "How long have you been in England? How has it fared with you?
You seem very badly off; coming here to hide? Nothing very bad, I hope?
What is it?"
Jasper answered in the same language, though with less practised mastery
of it, and with that constitutional levity which, whatever the time or
circumstances, occasionally gave a strange sort of wit, or queer,
uncanny, devil-me-care vein of drollery, to his modes of expression.
"Three months of the worst luck man ever had; a row with the gens-
d'armes,--long story: three of our pals seized; affair of the galleys for
them, I suspect (French frogs can't seize me!); fricasseed one or two of
them; broke away, crossed the country, reached the coast; found an honest
smuggler; landed off Sussex with a few other kegs of brandy; remembered
you, preserved the address you gave me, and condescend to this rat-hole
for a night or so. Let me in; knock up somebody, break open the larder.
I want to eat, I am famished; I should have eaten you by this time, only
there's nothing on your bones."
The little man opened the door,--a passage black as Erebus. "Give me
your hand, General." Jasper was led through the pitchy gloom for a few
yards; then the guide found a gas-cock, and the place broke suddenly into
light: a dirty narrow staircase on one side; facing it a sort of lobby,
in which an open door showed a long sanded parlour, like that in public
houses; several tables, benches, the walls whitewashed, but adorned with
sundry ingenious designs made by charcoal or the smoked ends of clay-
pipes; a strong smell of stale tobacco and of gin and rum. Another
gaslight, swinging from the centre of the ceiling, sprang into light as
Cutts touched the tap-cock.
"Wait here," said the guide. "I will go and get you some supper."
"And some brandy," said Jasper.
"Of course."
The bravo threw himself at length on one of the tables, and, closing his
eyes, moaned. His vast strength had become acquainted with physical
pain. In its stout knots and fibres, aches and sharp twinges, the
dragon-teeth of which had been sown years ago in revels or brawls, which
then seemed to bring but innocuous joy and easy triumph, now began to
gnaw and grind. But when Cutts reappeared with coarse viands and the
brandy bottle, Jasper shook off the sense of pain, as does a wounded wild
beast that can still devour; and after regaling fast and ravenously, he
emptied half the bottle at a draught, and felt himself restored and
fresh.
"Shall you fling yourself amongst the swell fellows who hold their club
here, General?" asked Cutts; "'tis a bad trade; every year it gets
worse. Or have you not some higher game in your eye?"
"I have higher game in my eye. One bird I marked down this very night.
But that may be slow work, and uncertain. I have in this pocket-book a
bank to draw upon meanwhile."
"How? forged French /billets de banque/? dangerous."
"Pooh! better than that,--letters which prove theft against a
respectable rich man."
"Ah, you expect hush-money?"
"Exactly so. I have good friends in London."
"Among them, I suppose, that affectionate 'adopted mother,' who would
have kept you in such order."
"Thousand thunders! I hope not. I am not a superstitious man, but I
fear that woman as if she were a witch, and I believe she is one. You
remember black Jean, whom we call Sansculotte. He would have filled a
churchyard with his own brats for a five-franc piece; but he would not
have crossed a churchyard alone at night for a thousand naps. Well, that
woman to me is what a churchyard was to black Jean. No: if she is in
London, I have but to go to her house and say, 'Food, shelter, money;'
and I would rather ask Jack Ketch for a rope."
"How do you account for it, General? She does not beat you; she is not
your wife. I have seen many a stout fellow, who would stand fire without
blinking, show the white feather at a scold's tongue. But then he must
be spliced to her--"
"Cutts, that Griffin does not scold: she preaches. She wants to make me
spoony, Cutts: she talks of my young days, Cutts; she wants to blight me
into what she calls an honest man, Cutts,--the virtuous dodge! She snubs
and cows me, and frightens me out of my wits, Cutts; for I do believe
that the witch is determined to have me, body and soul, and to marry me
some day in spite of myself, Cutts; and if ever you see me about to be
clutched in those horrible paws, poison me with ratsbane, or knock me on
the head, Cutts."
The little man laughed a little laugh, sharp and eldrich, at the strange
cowardice of the stalwart dare-devil. But Jasper did not echo the laugh.
"Hush!" he said timidly, "and let me have a bed, if you can; I have not
slept in one for a week, and my nerves are shaky."
The imp lighted a candle-end at the gas-lamp, and conducted Losely up the
stairs to his own sleeping-room, which was less comfortless than might be
supposed. He resigned his bed to the wanderer, who flung himself on it,
rags and all. But sleep was no more at his command than it is at a
king's.
"Why the ---- did you talk of that witch?" he cried peevishly to Cutts,
who was composing himself to rest on the floor. "I swear I fancy I feel
her sitting on my chest like a nightmare."
He turned with a vehemence which shook the walls, and wrapped the
coverlet round him, plunging his head into its folds. Strange though it
seem to the novice in human nature, to Jasper Losely the woman who had so
long lived but for one object--namely, to save him from the gibbet--was
as his evil genius, his haunting fiend. He had conceived a profound
terror of her from the moment he perceived that she was resolutely bent
upon making him honest. He had broken from her years ago, fled, resumed
his evil courses, hid himself from her,--in vain. Wherever he went,
there went she. He might baffle the police, not her. Hunger had often
forced him to accept her aid. As soon as he received it, he hid from her
again, burying himself deeper and deeper in the mud, like a persecuted
tench. He associated her idea with all the ill-luck that had befallen
him. Several times some villanous scheme on which he had counted to make
his fortune had been baffled in the most mysterious way; and just when
baffled, and there seemed no choice but to cut his own throat or some one
else's, up turned grim Arabella Crane, in the iron-gray gown, and with
the iron-gray ringlets,--hatefully, awfully beneficent,--offering food,
shelter, gold,--and some demoniacal, honourable work. Often had he been
in imminent peril from watchful law or treacherous accomplice. She had
warned and saved him, as she had saved him from the fell Gabrielle
Desmarets, who, unable to bear the sentence of penal servitude, after a
long process, defended with astonishing skill and enlisting the romantic
sympathies of young France, had contrived to escape into another world by
means of a subtle poison concealed about her /distinguee/ person, and
which she had prepared years ago with her own bloodless hands, and no
doubt scientifically tested its effects on others. The cobra di capella
is gone at last! "/Souviens-toi de ta Gabrielle/," O Jasper Losely! But
why Arabella Crane should thus continue to watch over him whom she no
longer professed to love, how she should thus have acquired the gift of
ubiquity and the power to save him, Jasper Losely could not conjecture.
The whole thing seemed to him weird and supernatural. Most truly did he
say that she had cowed him. He had often longed to strangle her; when
absent from her, had often resolved upon that act of gratitude. The
moment he came in sight of her stern, haggard face, her piercing lurid
eyes; the moment he heard her slow, dry voice in some such sentences as
these: "Again you come to me in your trouble, and ever shall. Am I not
still as your mother, but with a wife's fidelity, till death us do part?
There's the portrait of what you were: look at it, Jasper. Now turn to
the glass: see what you are. Think of the fate of Gabrielle Desmarets!
But for me, what, long since, had been your own? But I will save you:
I have sworn it. You shall be wax in these hands at last,"--the moment
that voice thus claimed and insisted on redeeming him, the ruffian felt
a cold shudder, his courage oozed, he could no more have nerved his arm
against her than a Thug would have lifted his against the dire goddess of
his murderous superstition. Jasper could not resist a belief that the
life of this dreadful protectress was, somehow or other, made essential
to his; that, were she to die, he should perish in some ghastly and
preternatural expiation. But for the last few months he had, at length,
escaped from her; diving so low, so deep into the mud, that even her net
could not mesh him. Hence, perhaps, the imminence of the perils from
which he had so narrowly escaped, hence the utterness of his present
destitution. But man, however vile, whatever his peril, whatever his
destitution, was born free, and loves liberty. Liberty to go to Satan
in his own way was to Jasper Losely a supreme blessing compared to
that benignant compassionate espionage, with its relentless eye and
restraining hand. Alas and alas! deem not this perversity unnatural
in that headstrong self-destroyer! How many are there whom not a grim,
hard-featured Arabella Crane, but the long-suffering, divine, omniscient,
gentle Providence itself, seeks to warn, to aid, to save; and is shunned,
and loathed, and fled from, as if it were an evil genius! How many are
there who fear nothing so much as the being made good in spite of
themselves?--how many? who can count them?