SUICIDE.
PICCADILLY, _April_.
Considering the extent to which I have been digressing, it will be
perhaps desirable, before I plunge again into the stormy current of my
narrative, to define in a few words what, in the language of diplomacy,
is termed "the situation." After I have done so, I shall feel much
obliged if you will kindly "grasp" it. Briefly, it is as follows: I am
telegraphed for in frantic terms by an old lady who is under the firm
impression that I am engaged to be married to her daughter. I am
violently in love with that daughter, but for certain reasons I have
felt it my duty to account for my extraordinary conduct by informing her
confidentially that I have occasional fits of temporary insanity. That
daughter, I am positively assured by her mother, is no less violently
attached to my most dear and intimate friend. My most dear and intimate
friend returns the affection. Mamma threatens that if I do not marry her
daughter, rather than allow my most dear and intimate friend to do so,
she will ally the young lady to an affluent native of Bombay. So much is
known. On the following points I am still in the dark:--
First, What on earth does Lady Broadhem mean by telling me to come
immediately, as delay may be fatal?--to whom? to me or to Lady Ursula,
or herself? My knowledge of her ladyship induces me to incline towards
the latter hypothesis; the suspense is, however, none the less trying.
Second, Does Lady Ursula imagine that I know how she and Grandon feel
towards each other?
Third, Is Grandon under the impression that I have actually proposed and
been accepted by Lady Ursula?
Fourth, Does my conduct occasionally amount to something more than
eccentricity or not?
Fifth--and this was very unpleasant--Shall I find Grandon at our joint
abode? And if so, what shall I say to him?
Sixth, Have Grandon and Lady Ursula met, and did anything pass between
them?
Thank goodness Grandon was at the House. So, after a hurried toilet, I
went on to Grosvenor Square. The young ladies were both out. Lady
Bridget had taken advantage of the _chaperonage_ of a newly-married
rather fast female cousin, to go to a ball. Lady Ursula had gone to a
solitary tea with a crabbed old aunt. Lady Broadhem was in her own
sitting-room, lying on a couch behind a table covered with papers. She
looked wearily up when I entered, and held out a thin hand for me to do
what I liked with. "How good of you to come, dear Frank!" she said. It
was the first time she had ever called me Frank, and I knew she expected
me to acknowledge it by pressing her fingers, so I squeezed them
affectionately. "Broadhem said if I wanted to make sure of you I ought
to have brought Ursula's name into the telegraph, but I told him her
mother's would do as well."
"What does the----" I am afraid I mentally said 'old girl'--"want, I
wonder? It must be really serious, or she would have shammed agitation.
There is something about this oily calm which is rather portentous. Then
she has taken care to have every member of the family out of the house.
What is she ringing the bell for now?"
"Tell Lady Ursula when she comes home that I am engaged particularly,
and will come up and see her in her bedroom before she goes to bed,"
said Lady Broadhem to the servant who answered it.
"Does not Lady Ursula know of my having come to town in answer to your
summons?" I asked.
"No, dear child; why should I inflict my troubles upon her? Even
Broadhem, to whom I was obliged to speak more openly, only suspects the
real state of the case. I have reserved my full confidence for my future
son-in-law."
I lifted up my eyes with a rapturous expression, and played with a
paper-knife. She wanted me to help her on with an obvious remark, which
I declined to make; so, after a pause, she went on, with a deep
sigh,----
"What sad news we keep on getting of those poor dear Confederates,
Frank!"
"Let us hope they will recover," said I, encouragingly.
"Oh, but they do keep on falling so, it is quite dreadful."
"There was no great number of them fell at Wilmington."
"How stupid I am!" she said; "my poor mind gets quite bewildered. I was
thinking of stock, not men; they went down again three more yesterday,
and my broker declines altogether to carry them on from one account to
another any more. I bought at 60, and they have done nothing but go down
ever since. I generally go by Lord Staggerton's advice, and he
recommended me to sell a bear some months ago; but that stupid little
Spiffy Goldtip insisted that it was only a temporary depression, and now
he says how could he know that President Davis would replace Johnston by
Hood."
"Very tiresome of Davis: but you should have employed more than one
broker," I remarked. "Persons of limited capital and speculative
tendencies should operate mysteriously. Your right hand should not know
what your left hand is doing."
"Hush, Frank! you can surely be business-like without being profane. I
was completely in Spiffy's hands; Lady Mundane told me she always let
him do for her, and"--here Lady Broadhem lowered her voice--"I _know_ he
has access to the best sources of information. I used to employ
Staggerton, but he is so selfish that he never told me the best things;
besides which, of course, I was obliged to have him constantly to
dinner; and his great delight was always to say things which were
calculated to shock my religious friends. Moreover, he has lately been
doing more as a promoter of new companies than in buying and selling.
Now Spiffy is so very useful in society, and has so much tact, that
although there are all kinds of stories against him, still I did not
think there was any sufficient reason to shut him out of the house.
There was quite a set made against the poor little man at one
time--worldly people are so hard and uncharitable; so, partly for the
sake of his aunt, Lady Spiffington, who was my dear friend, and partly,
indeed, because Staggerton had really become useless and intolerable, I
put my affairs entirely into Spiffy's hands."
"And the result is?" I asked.
"That I must pay up L27,000 to-morrow," said Lady Broadhem, with the
impenitent sigh of a hardened criminal.
"You should have kept his lordship to act as a check on the Honourable
Spiffington," I said; "but I cannot advise now, unless I know
everything."
A faint tinge suffused Lady Broadhem's cheek as she said, "What more do
you want to know?"
"Exactly what money you possess, and exactly how it is invested."
"I don't see that that is at all necessary. Here is Spiffington's
letter, from which you will see how much I must pay to-morrow; my
assurance that I cannot produce so large a sum at such short notice is
enough."
"You can surely have no difficulty in finding some one who would lend
you the money, provided you were to pay a sufficiently high rate of
interest."
The tinge which had not left Lady Broadhem's cheek deepened as she
answered me, "Frank, it was on no hasty impulse that I telegraphed for
you. I do not feel bound to enter into all the details of my private
affairs, but I do feel that if there is one man in the world upon whom,
at such a crisis, I have a right to rely, it is he to whom I have
promised my daughter, and who professes to be devotedly attached to
her."
"In short, Lady Broadhem," said I, rising and taking up my hat, "you are
willing to part with your daughter to me on condition of my paying a
first instalment of L27,000 down, with the prospect of 'calls' to an
unlimited extent looming in the background. I doubt whether you will
find Chundango prepared to go into such a very hazardous speculation,
but I should recommend you to apply to him."
At that moment I heard Lady Ursula's voice in the hall, and the rustle
of her dress as she went up-stairs. I was on my way to the door, but I
stopped abruptly, and turned upon Lady Broadhem. She was saying
something to which I was not attending, but now was suddenly paralysed
and silenced as I looked at her fixedly. If a glance can convey meaning,
I flatter myself my eyes were not devoid of expression at that moment.
"What!" I thought, "is it reserved for the mother of the girl I love to
make me call her 'a hazardous speculation'?" It is impossible for me to
describe the intensity of the hatred which I felt at this moment for the
woman who had caused me for one second to think of Ursula as a
marketable commodity, who should be offered for purchase to an Oriental
adventurer. The only being I despised more than Lady Broadhem was
myself;--because she chose to take my angel off the pedestal on which I
had placed her and throw her into the dirt, was I calmly to acquiesce in
the proceeding? The storm raging within me seemed gradually to blind me
to external objects; my great love was battling with remorse,
indignation, and despair; and I stood wavering and distracted, looking,
as it were, within for rest and without for comfort, till the light
seemed to leave my eyes, and the fire which had flashed from them for a
moment became suddenly extinguished.
I was recalled to consciousness by an exclamation from Lady Broadhem.
"Heavens, Frank, don't stare so wildly--you quite frighten me! I have
only asked for your advice, and you make use of expressions and fly off
in a manner which nothing but the excitability of your temperament can
excuse. I assure you I am worried enough without having my cares added
to by your unkindness. There, if you want to know the exact state of my
affairs, look through my papers--you will find I am a woman of business;
and I have got an accurate list which I shall be able to explain. Of
course all the more important original documents are at my solicitor's."
I sat moodily down without answering this semi-conciliatory,
semi-plaintive speech. I did not even take the trouble to analyse it. I
felt morally and physically exhausted. The long journey, the suspense,
and this _denouement_, had prostrated me. I took up the papers Lady
Broadhem offered me, and turned them vacantly over. I read the list, but
failed to attach any meaning to the items over which my gaze listlessly
wandered. I felt that Lady Broadhem was watching me curiously, but every
effort I made to grasp the details before me failed hopelessly. At last
I threw the packet down in despair, and, leaning over the table, clasped
my bursting forehead with my hands.
"Dear Frank," said Lady Broadhem, and for the first time her voice
betrayed signs of genuine emotion, "I know I have been very imprudent,
but I did it all for the best. You can understand now why I hesitated to
tell you everything at first. You don't know how much it has cost me,
and to what means I am obliged to resort to keep up my courage; besides,
I have got into such a habit of concealment that I could not bear that
even you should know the desperate state of our affairs, though I had no
idea that in so short a time you could have unravelled such complicated
accounts and arrived at the terrible result. Perhaps you would like me
to leave you for a few moments. I will go and say good-night to Ursula,
whom I heard going up-stairs just now."
I heard Lady Broadhem leave the room, but did not raise my head, and
indeed only slowly comprehended the purport of her last speech. As it
dawned upon me, the hopelessness of the whole situation seemed to
overwhelm me. Chaos and ruin like gaunt spectres stared me in the face!
What mattered it if the Broadhem family were bankrupt in estate, if I
was to become bankrupt in mind? What matter if they lost all their
worldly possessions? Had I not lost all hope of Ursula since I had heard
of her attachment to Grandon, and with her every generous impulse of my
nature? Why should I save the family, even if I could? Why in this
desert of my existence spend a fortune on an oasis I was forbidden ever
to enter or enjoy? Why should I bring offerings to the shrine at which I
might never worship? The whole temple that enclosed it was tottering.
Instead of helping to prop it up, why not, like Samson, drag it down and
let it bury me in its ruin? I threw myself on the couch from which Lady
Broadhem had risen, and, turning my face to the wall, longed with an
intense desire for an eternal release. At that moment my hand, which I
had thrust under the pillow, came in contact with something hard and
cold. I drew it out, and was startled to find that it was a small vial
labelled "POISON." I am not naturally superstitious, but this immediate
response to my thoughts seemed an indication so direct as to be almost
supernatural. I had hardly framed in definite terms the idea of a
suicide which should at once end my agony, when the means thereto were
actually placed in my very hand. Even had I doubted, the inward sense,
the inspiration to which I trust, and which has never yet failed me,
said, Drink! It even whispered aloud, Drink! From every corner of the
room came soft pleasant murmurs of the same word. Beautiful sirens
floating round me bade me drink. Every thought of moral evil vanished in
connection with this final act. I looked forward with rapture to the
long sleep before me, and with a smile of the most intense and fervent
gratitude I raised the bottle to my lips. I remember thinking at the
moment, "The smile is very important--it shall play upon my lips to the
end. Ursula, I die happy, for my last thought is, that in the spirit I
shall soon revisit thee," and the liquid trickled slowly down my throat.
It was not until I had drained the last drop that I suddenly recognised
the taste. It was the "pick-me-up" I always get at Harris's, the
apothecary in St James's Street, when my fit of nervous exhaustion come
on, but there seemed rather more of the spirituous ingredient in it than
usual. The life-stream began to tingle back through all my fibres--my
miseries took grotesque forms. "Ha! ha! Lady Broadhem! the means you
take to keep up your courage, which you so delicately alluded to just
now, have come in most opportunely. What a fool I was to make mountains
out of molehills, and call the little ills of life miseries! We will
soon see what these little imprudences are the old lady talks of." And I
took up the papers with a hand rapidly becoming steady, and glanced over
them with an eye no longer confused and dim. Oh the pleasure of the
sensation of this gradual recovery of vigour of mind and force of body!
I was engaged in this task, and making the most singular and startling
discoveries, the nature of which I shall shortly disclose, when I heard
Lady Broadhem coming down-stairs. I felt so angry with her for having
been the means of tempting me to commit a great sin, and for the trouble
she was causing me generally, that I followed the first impulse which my
imagination suggested as the best means of revenging myself upon her.
Accordingly, when the door opened, she found me stretched at full length
on the sofa, my form rigid, my face fixed, my eyes staring, my hands
clenched, and my whole attitude as nearly that of a person in a fit as I
had time to make it.
"Gracious, what is the matter?" said she.
My lips seemed with difficulty to form the word "poison."
"Frank, speak to me!" and she seized my hand, which was not so cold as I
could have wished it, but which fell helplessly by my side as she let it
drop.
"Poison!" I this time muttered audibly.
"Where did you get it?" said she, snappishly. For it began to dawn upon
her that I was not poisoned at all, but had discovered her secret. I
turned my thumb languidly in the direction of under the pillow. She
hastily thrust in her hand and pulled out the empty bottle. "You
fool"--she actually used this expression; I have heard other ladies do
the same--"you fool," and she was literally furious, "what did you go
poking under the pillow for? You are no more poisoned than I am; it is a
draught I am obliged to take for nervous depression, and your
imagination has almost frightened you into a fit. I put 'poison' on it
to keep the servants from prying. Come, get up, be a man--do," and Lady
Broadhem gave me her hand, in consideration for my weakness to help
myself up by.
"Dearest Lady Broadhem," said I, pressing it to my lips, "I cannot tell
what comfort you give me. I was just beginning to regret the world I
thought I was about to leave for ever, when your assurance that I have
not taken poison, but a tonic, makes me feel as grateful to you as if
you had saved my life. I confess that, when I found that you considered
your affairs to be so desperate that you had provided the most effectual
mode of escape from them, I envied the superior foresight which you had
displayed, and determined to repair my error. If it is worth dear Lady
Broadhem's while to poison herself, I thought, it is surely worth mine.
But, after all, suicide is a cowardly act either in a man or a woman;
better far face the ills of life with the aid of stimulants, than fly
for refuge in the agony of a financial crisis to the shop of an
apothecary."
"You are an incomprehensible creature, Frank," said Lady Broadhem; "I am
sure I hope for her own sake that Ursula will understand you better than
I do; but as your humours are uncertain, and you seem able to go into
these affairs now, I think we had better not waste any more time; only I
do wish" (with a wistful glance at the bottle) "you would provide
yourself with your own draughts in future."
"How lucky," thought I, as I put on a business-like air, and
methodically began arranging the papers according to their docquets.
"Now, if it had been just the other way, and her ladyship had taken the
draught instead of me, how completely I should have been at her mercy?
Now I am master of the situation."
"'Greek loan, thirty thousand,'" I read, going down the list; "I am
afraid this is rather a losing business. I see they have been already
held over for some months. I suppose some of the L27,000 is to be
absorbed there."
"Yes," said Lady Broadhem; "because if I can carry on for another
fortnight, I have got information which makes it certain I shall recover
on them."
"What is this? five hundred pounds' worth of dollar bonds?" I went on.
"Oh, I only lost a few pounds on them. I bought them at threepence
apiece and sold them at twopence. Spiffy got me to take them off his
hands, and, in fact, made a great favour of it, as he says there is
nothing people make money more surely out of than dollar bonds."
"Bubbs's Eating-house and Cigar Divan Company, Holborn. Well, there is a
strong direction. How do you come by so many shares?"
"Lord Staggerton was one of the promoters, and had them allotted to me,"
said Lady Broadhem. "He also was kind enough to put me into two Turkish
baths, a monster hotel, and a music-hall. You will see that I lost
heavily in the Turkish baths and the hotel, but the music-hall is paying
well. Spiffy says I ought never to stay so long in anything as I do; in
and out again, if it is only half a per cent, is his system; but
Staggerton used to look after my interests, and managed them very
successfully. I am afraid that all my troubles commenced when I
quarrelled with him. He is now promoting two companies which I hear most
highly spoken of, but he says I must take my chance with others about
shares, and he won't advise me in the matter. One is 'The Metropolitan
Crossing-Sweeping Company,' of which he's to be chairman, and the other
is the 'Seaside Bathing-Machine Company.' Spiffy says they will both
fail, because Staggerton has not the means of having them properly
brought out. Bodwinkle won't speak to him, and unless either he or the
Credit Foncier bring a thing out, there is not the least chance of its
taking with the public. They don't so much look at the merits of the
speculation as at the way in which it is put before them; and with this
system of rigging the market, so many people go in like me only to get
out again, that it is becoming more and more difficult every day to
start anything new. Oh dear," said Lady Broadhem, "how exhausted it
always makes me to talk 'City!' I only want to show you that I
understand what I am about, and that if you can only help to tide me
over this crisis, something will surely turn up a prize."
"I know you disapprove of cards, but perhaps you will allow me to
suggest the word 'trump' as being more expressive than 'prize,'" I said.
"Well, now we have got through the companies, what have we here? Why,
Lady Broadhem, you have positively taken no less than seven unfurnished
houses this year. What on earth do you intend to do with them all?"
"My dear Frank, where have you been living for the last few years? Do
with them? Exactly what dozens of smart people, with very little to live
on, do with houses--let them, to be sure. I made L1100 last year in four
houses, and all by adding it on to the premiums. I don't like furnishing
and putting it in the rent. In the first place, one is apt to have
disagreeable squabbles about the furniture, which, however good you give
people, they always say is shabby; and in the second, you get much more
into the hands of the house-agents."
"Well, but," I said, "here is one of the largest houses in London--rent,
unfurnished, L1500 a-year. That is rather hazardous: who do you expect
will take that?"
"Oh, that is the safest speculation of them all," said Lady Broadhem. "I
had an infinity of trouble to get it. Spiffy first suggested the plan to
me, and we found it succeed admirably last year. It was we who brought
out Mrs Gorgon Tompkins and her daughters. She took the house from me at
my own rent on condition that Spiffy managed her balls, and got all the
best people in London to go to them. This year we are going to bring out
the Bodwinkles. It will be much easier, because she is young, and has no
family. He, you know, is a man of immense wealth in the City--in fact,
as I said before, his name is almost essential to the success of any new
company. I told his wife I could have nothing to do with them unless he
came into Parliament, for they are horridly vulgar, and they were bound
to do what they could for themselves before I could think of taking them
up. Lady Mundane positively refused to have anything to do with them,
and, in fact, I live so little in the world, though I keep it up to some
extent for the sake of my girls, that it was quite an accident my
hearing of them. Now, however, he has got into the House of Commons, and
it is arranged that she is to take the house, and Bodwinkle is to help
Spiffy in City matters, on condition that he gets all Lady Mundane's
list to her first party. Poor Spiffy is a little nervous, as Bodwinkle
actually wanted to put it in writing on a stamped paper; but he is so
immensely useful to society, that the least people can do is to be
good-natured on an occasion of this kind."
"No fear of them," said I; "if Bodwinkle is the only man who can launch
a company in the City, no one can compete with Spiffy in launching a
snob in Mayfair. But I thought you never went to balls."
"I never do; but because I do not approve of dancing, there is no reason
why I should not let houses for the purpose. You might as well say a
religious banker ought not to open an account with a theatre, or a good
brewer live by his beer, because some people drink too much of it. If
any one was to leave a gin-palace to me in a legacy, I should not refuse
the rent."
"Any more than you do the interest of your shares in the music-hall. And
now," said I, coolly, gathering up all her papers and putting them in my
pocket, "as it is past one o'clock, and I see you are tired, I will take
these away with me, and let you know to-morrow what I think had better
be done under the circumstances."
"What are you doing, Frank? what an unheard-of proceeding! I insist upon
your leaving my papers here."
"If I do, you must look elsewhere for the money. No, Lady Broadhem"--I
felt that my moral ascendancy was increasing every moment, and that I
should never have such another opportunity of establishing it--"we had
better understand each other clearly. You regard me at this moment in
the light of your future son-in-law, and in that capacity expect me to
extricate you and your family from your financial difficulties. Now I am
quite capable of 'behaving badly,' as the world calls it, at the
shortest notice. I told you at Dickiefield that I was totally without
principle, and we are both trusting to Ursula to reform me. But I will
relinquish the pleasure of paying your debts, and the advantage of being
reformed by your daughter, unless you agree to my terms."
"And they are?" said her ladyship, doggedly.
"First, that from this evening you put the entire management of your
affairs into my hands, and, as a preliminary measure, allow me to take
away these papers, giving me a note to your lawyer authorising him to
follow my instructions in everything; and, secondly, that you never,
under any pretence, enter into any company or speculation of any kind
except with my permission."
A glance of very evil meaning shot across her ladyship's eyes as they
met mine after this speech, but I frightened it away by the savageness
of my gaze, till she was literally obliged to put her hand up to her
forehead. The crisis was exciting me, for Ursula was at stake, and it
was just possible my conditions might be refused; but I felt the
magnetism of my will concentrating itself in my eyes as if they were
burning-glasses. It seemed to dash itself upon the reefs and barriers of
Lady Broadhem's rocky nature; the inner forces of our organisms were
engaged in a decisive struggle for the mastery; but the field of battle
was in her, not in me. I had invaded the enemy's country, and her
frontier was as long and difficult to defend as ours is in Canada. So I
kept on pouring in mesmeric reinforcements, as she sat with her head
bent, and her whole moral being in turmoil. Never before had any man
ventured to dictate to this veteran campaigner. The late Lord had been
accustomed to regard her as infallible, and Broadhem has not yet known
the pleasures of independence. She never had friends who were not
servile, or permitted herself to be contradicted, except by a few
privileged ecclesiastics, and then only in unctuous and deprecatory
tones. That I, of whom the world was accustomed to speak in terms of
compassion, and whom she inwardly despised at this moment, should stand
over her more unyielding and imperious than herself, caused her to
experience a sensation nearly allied to suffocation. I seemed
instinctively to follow the mental processes through which she was
passing, and a certain consciousness that I did so demoralised her. Now,
I felt, she is going to take me to task in a "sweet Christian spirit"
about the state of my soul, and I brought up "will" reinforcements which
I poured down upon her brain through the parting of her front, till she
backed suddenly out of the position, and took up a hostile, I might
almost say an abusive, attitude. Here again I met her with such a shower
of invective, "uttered not, yet comprehended," that after a silent
contest she gave this up too, and finally fell back on the flat
rejection of me and my money altogether. This, I confess, was the
critical moment. She took her hand down when she came to this mental
resolution, and she looked at me, I thought, but it might have been
imagination, demoniacally. What had I to oppose to it? My love for
Ursula? No; that would soften me. My aversion to Lady Broadhem? No; for
it was not so great as hers for me. For a moment I wavered; my will
seemed paralysed; her gaze was becoming fascinating, while mine was
getting clouded, till a mist seemed to conceal her from me altogether.
And now, at the risk of being misunderstood and ridiculed, I feel bound
to describe exactly the most remarkable occurrence of my life. At that
moment I saw distinctly, in the luminous haze which surrounded me, a
fiery cross. I have already said that objects of this kind often
appeared to me in the dark, apropos of nothing; but upon no former
occasion had a lighted room become dim, and a vision manifested itself
within which seemed to answer to the involuntary invocation for
assistance that I made when I found the powers of my own will beginning
utterly to fail me; and, what was still more strange, never before had
any such manifestation effected an immediate revolution in my
sentiments. Up to that moment I had been internally fierce and
overbearing in my resolution to subdue the nature with which I was
contending, and I was actually defeated when I received this
supernatural indication of assistance. Before the dazzling vision had
vanished, it had conveyed its lesson of self-sacrifice, and created
within me a new impulse, under the influence of which I solemnly vowed
that if I triumphed now I should use my victory for the good not only of
those I loved, but of her then sitting before me. The demon of my own
nature, which had evidently been struggling with the demon of hers,
suddenly deserted me, and his place seemed occupied by an angel of
light, furnishing me with the powers of exorcism, which were to be
gained only at the sacrifice of self. My very breath seemed instantly
charged with prayers for her, at the moment I felt she regarded me with
loathing and hate.
An ineffable calm pervaded my whole being. A sense of happiness and
gratitude deprived the consciousness of the conquest which I had gained
of any sentiment of exultation; on the contrary, I felt gentle and
subdued myself--anxious to soothe and comfort her with that consolation
I had just experienced. Ah, Lady Broadhem! at that moment, had I not
been in the presence of a "saint," I should have fallen upon my knees.
Perhaps as it was I might have done so, had she not suddenly leant back
exhausted.
"Frank," she said, "I seem to have been dreaming. I am subject to fits
of violent nervous depression, and the agitation of this scene has
completely overcome me; my brain seems stunned, and all my faculties
have become torpid. I can think of nothing more now, do what you like;
all I want is to go to sleep. If you ring the bell in that corner,
Jenkins will come down. Good-night; I shall see you to-morrow. Take the
papers with you."
I took Lady Broadhem's hand--it was cold and clammy--and held it till
her maid came down. She had already fallen into a half-mesmeric sleep,
but was not conscious of her condition. I saw her safely on her way to
her bedroom on the arm of her maid, and left the house with my pockets
full of papers, more fresh and invigorated than I had felt for weeks. A
new light had indeed dawned upon me. For the first time one of these
"hallucinations," as medical men usually term them, to which I am
subject, had contained a lesson. Not only had I profited from it upon
the spot, but it had suggested to me an entirely new line of conduct in
the great question which most nearly affected my own happiness, and
seemed to guarantee me the strength of will and moral courage which
should enable me to carry it out.
As I walked home, with the piercing March wind cutting me through,
solemn thoughts and earnest aspirations arose within me, and, struggling
into existence amid the wreck that seemed to strew the disturbed
chambers of my brain, came the prayer of an old saint, which, in years
gone by, had fixed itself permanently in some vacant niche of my mind:--
"Great God! I ask Thee for no meaner pelf,
Than that I may not disappoint myself,
That in my actions I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye;
And next in value what Thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope that it might be,
They may not dream how Thou'st distinguished me;
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,
And my life practise more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I Thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated Thy designs."
Time alone will show whether the project I formed under the new
influences which were now controlling me, will ever be realised.
* * * * *
There is one point which I have in common with Archimedes,--my most
brilliant inspirations very often come to me in my tub, or while I am
dressing. On the morning following the scene above described, I trusted
to this moment to furnish me with an idea which should enable me to put
my plan into operation, but I sought in vain.
In the first place, though I assumed in the presence of Lady Broadhem a
thorough knowledge of the peculiar description of the transaction in
which she was engaged, I feel bound not to conceal from my readers that
I have made it a rule through life to confine my knowledge of business
strictly to theory, and though I am as thoroughly conversant with the
terms of the Stock Exchange as with the language of the swell mob, I
avoid, in ordinary life, making use either of one or the other. Hence I
have always treated debentures, stock, scrip, coupons, and all the
jargon connected with such money-making and money-losing contrivances,
as pertaining to the abstract science of finance; nor do I ever desire
to know anything of them practically, feeling assured that the
information thus acquired is of a character calculated to exercise an
injurious influence upon the moral nature. I do not for a moment wish to
reflect upon those honest individuals who devote their whole lives to
the acquisition of money and nothing else. Had one of my own ancestors
not done so, I should not now be the millionaire I am, and able to write
thus of the pursuit of wealth. But let no man tell me that the supreme
indifference to it which I entertain, does not place me upon a higher
platform than a gold-hunter can possibly aspire to. When, therefore, I
looked forward to an interview with the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip,
I felt that I incurred a very serious responsibility. Not being versed
in the Capel Court standard of morality, or being in the habit of
treading those delicate lines upon which Spiffy had learnt to balance
himself so gracefully, I might, instead of doing him good, be the means
of encouraging him in that pecuniary scramble which enabled him to gain
a precarious livelihood.
"After all," I thought, "why not hover about the City with one's hands
full of gold, as one used to after dinner at Greenwich, when showers of
copper delighted the ragged crowd beneath, and have the fun of seeing
all the mud-larking Spiffys, fashionable and snobbish, scrambling in
wild confusion, and rolling fraternally over each other in the dirt? If
I can't convert them, if I must be 'done' by them, I will 'do' to them
as I would be 'done' by; and rather than leave them to perish, will
adopt an extreme measure, and keep on suffocating them with the mud they
delight to revel in, till they cry aloud for help. What a pleasure it
would be to wash Spiffy all over afterwards, and start him fresh and
sweet in a new line of life!" As I said before, I was in my tub myself
as I made this appropriate reflection; then my thoughts involuntarily
reverted to Chundango. When I had threatened Lady Broadhem with the
mercenary spirit of that distinguished Oriental, I inwardly doubted
whether, indeed, it were possible for her to propose any pecuniary
sacrifice which he was not prepared to make, in order to gain the
social prize upon which he had set his heart; and I dreaded lest I
should have driven her in despair to have recourse to this "dark"
alternative,--whether, in order to save the Broadhem family from ruin
and disgrace--for I suspected that the papers I had carried away
contained evidence that the one was as possible as the other--Ursula
would accede to the pressure of the family generally, and of her mother
in particular, whose wish none of her children had ever dared to thwart,
was a consideration which caused me acute anxiety. I must prepare myself
shortly for a conversation on the subject with Grandon. What should I
say to him? Granting that the means occasionally justify the end, which
I do not admit, what would be the use of making a false statement either
in the sense that I was, or that I was not, going to marry Ursula? If I
said I was, he would think me a traitor and her a jilt; if I said I was
not, I must go on and tell him that the family would be ruined and
disgraced, or that she must marry Chundango to save it. He would obtain
comfort neither way. He had evidently not seen the Broadhems, and was
therefore sure now to be in blissful ignorance that anything has
happened at all. Better leave him so. If he is convinced that Ursula
loves him, he would never dream of her accepting me. Even had our
acquaintance been longer than it was, before I was so mad as to think of
proposing to her, the best thing I can do is certainly to hold my
tongue; but then, I thought, how will he account for my reserve? what
can he think except that it arises from an unworthy motive?--and I
brushed my hair viciously. At that instant I heard a thump at the door,
and before I could answer, in walked the subject of my meditation.
"Well, my dear old fellow," said Grandon, as he grasped my hand warmly,
"how mysterious and spasmodic you have been in your movements! I was
afraid even now, if I had not invaded the sanctity of your
dressing-room, that you would have slipped through my fingers. I know
you have a great deal to tell me, of interest to us both, and we are too
fast friends to hesitate to confide in each other on any matters which
affect our happiness. True men never have any reticence as between
themselves; they only have recourse to that armour when they happen to
be cursed with false friends." I cannot describe my feelings during this
speech. How on earth was I to avoid reticence? how show him that I loved
and trusted him when I had just been elaborately devising a speech which
should tell him nothing? and I thought of our school and then our
college days--how I never seemed to be like other boys or other men of
my own age--and how when nobody understood me Grandon did, and how when
nobody defended my peculiarities Grandon did--how he protected and
advised me at first out of sheer compassion, until at last I had become
as a younger brother to him. How distressed he was when I gave up
diplomacy, and how anxious during the five years that I was exploring in
the Far West and gold-digging in Australia! and how nothing but his
letters ever induced me to leave the wild reckless life that possessed
such a wonderful charm for me; and how he bore with my wilfulness and
vanity--for the faults of my character at such moments would become
painfully apparent to me; and how now I was going to return it all, by
allowing him to suppose that I had deliberately plotted against his
happiness, and ruthlessly sapped the solid foundations upon which our
life's friendship had been built. He saw these painful thoughts
reflected but too accurately upon my face, for he had been accustomed to
read it for so many years, and he smiled a look of encouragement and
kindliness. "Come," he said, "I will tell you exactly, first, everything
I suspect, and then everything I know, and then what I think about it,
so that you will have as little of the labour of revelation as possible.
First of all, I suspect that you imagine that I had proposed to Lady
Ursula Newlyte before we met the other day at Dickiefield: I need not
say that in that case I should have told you as much upon the evening we
parted; I pledge you my word I have never uttered a syllable to Lady
Ursula from which she could suspect the state of my feelings towards
her, and she has never given me any indication that she returned my
affection; I therefore did not mention myself when you told me your
intention of proposing to her at Dickiefield; I only do so now in
consequence of a letter which I received from Lady Broadhem last night."
"A letter from Lady Broadhem?" said I, aghast.
"Yes," he said, "in which she encloses a copy of one of yours containing
a proposal to Lady Ursula, and informs me that you were aware, when you
made it, of the difficulties you might have to encounter through me. She
goes on to say that, whatever may have been her daughter's feelings
towards me at one time, they have completely changed, as she at once
accepted you; and she winds up with the rather unnecessary remark that
this is the less to be regretted by me, as under no circumstances would
I have obtained either her consent or that of Lord Broadhem. And so," my
poor friend went on, but his lips were quivering, and I turned away my
eyes to avoid seeing the effort it cost him--"and so, you see, my dear
Frank, it is all for the best. In the first place, she never loved me. I
have too high an opinion of her to suppose that if she had, she would
have accepted you; in the second, she would never have married me
against her mother's consent--and so, even if she had loved me, we
should have both been miserable; and thirdly, if there is one thing that
could console me under such a blow, it is, that the man she loves, and
the family approve, is my dear old friend, who is far more worthy the
happiness in store for him than I should have been." He put his hand
kindly on my shoulder as his strong voice shook with the force of his
suppressed emotion, and I bowed my head. I felt utterly humiliated by a
magnanimity so noble, and by a tenderness surpassing that of women. I
thanked God at that moment that Lady Ursula did _not_ love me, and I
vowed that Lady Broadhem should bitterly expiate her sins against us
both. Here, then, was the secret of her refusing to acknowledge that she
had stolen my missing letter at Dickiefield, and this was the precious
use she had made of it. The question now was, What was to be done? But
my mind was paralysed--all its strength seemed expended in vowing
vengeance against Lady Broadhem. When I tried to form a sentence of
explanation to Grandon, my brain refused its functions; I felt as if I
were in a net, and that the slightest movement on my part would entangle
me more inextricably in its meshes. The last resolution I had come to
before he entered the room was on no account to tell him anything, and
this resolution had now become an _idee fixe_. I had not clearness of
mind at the moment to decide whether it was right or wrong. I felt that
when my head was clear I had come to the conclusion that it was best, so
I stuck to it now. True, it involved leaving him in the delusion that
Ursula and I were engaged--but was it altogether certain to remain a
delusion? Did Lady Ursula really care for him? I had only Lady
Broadhem's word for it. Again, had I anything better to give him? would
it be a comfort to him to hear the Chundango alternative? These in a
confused way were the thoughts which flitted across my brain in this
moment of doubt and difficulty, so I said nothing. He misinterpreted my
silence, and thought me overwhelmed with remorse at the part I had
played. "Believe me," he said, "I do not think one particle the worse of
you for what you have done; I know how difficult it is to control one's
feelings in moments of passion; and you see you were quite right not to
believe Lady Broadhem when she told you Ursula cared for me."
"I had already written the letter," I stammered out.
"Of course you had: I never supposed you could do the dishonourable
thing of hearing she cared about me first, and writing to her
afterwards, although Lady Broadhem said so. When you did make the
discovery that Lady Ursula's affections were not already engaged, you
were perfectly right to win her if you could. I only bargain that you
ask me to be your best man."
This was a well-meant but such a very unsuccessful attempt at
resignation on Grandon's part, that it touched me to the quick. "My dear
Grandon," I said--and I saw my face in the glass opposite, looking white
and stony with the effort it cost me not to fall upon his neck and cry
like a woman--"I solemnly swear, whatever you may think now, that the
day will come when you will find that I was worthy the privilege of
having been even your friend. I was going to say, Till then, believe me
and trust me; but I need not, for I know that, however unnatural it
seems for me to ask you not to allude again to the subject we have just
been discussing, you will be satisfied that I would not ask it without
having a reason which if you knew you would approve. On my conscience I
believe that I am right in reserving from you my full confidence for the
first time in my life; but do not let the fact of one forbidden topic
alienate us--let it rather act as another link, hidden for the moment,
but which may some day prove the most powerful to bind us together."
Grandon's face lit up with a bright frank smile. "I trust and believe in
you from the bottom of my soul, and you shall bury any subject you like
till it suits you to exhume it. Come, we will go to breakfast, and I
will discourse to you on the political and military expediency of
spending L200,000 on the fortifications of Quebec."
"Well," thought I, as I followed Grandon down-stairs, "for a man who is
yearning to be honest, and to do the right thing by everybody, I have
got into as elaborate a complication of lies as if I were a Russian
diplomatist. First, I have given both Lady Broadhem and Grandon
distinctly to understand that I am at this moment engaged to Ursula,
which I am not; and secondly, I have solemnly assured that young lady
herself that I am conscious of being occasionally mad."
In this tissue of falsehoods, it is poor consolation to think that the
only one in which there may be some foundation of truth is the last.
Supposing I was to go in for dishonesty, perhaps I could not help
telling the truth by the rule of "contraries." I will go and ask the
Honourable Spiffington whether he finds this to be the case, and I
parted from Grandon in the hope of catching that gentleman before he had
betaken himself to his civic haunts. I was too late, and pursued him
east of Temple Bar. Here he frequented sundry "board-rooms" of companies
which by a figure of speech he helped to "direct," and was also to be
found in the neighbourhood of Hercules Passage and the narrow streets
which surround the Stock Exchange, in the little back dens of pet
brokers upon whom he relied for "good things." Spiffy used to collect
political news in fashionable circles all through the night and up to an
early hour of the morning, and then come into the City with it red-hot,
so as to "operate." He was one of the most lively little rabbits to be
found in all that big warren of which the Bank is the centre, and popped
in and out of the different holes with a quickness that made him very
difficult to catch. At last I ran him to a very dingy earth, where he
was pausing, seated on a green baize table over a glass of sherry and a
biscuit, and chaffing a rising young broker who hoped ultimately to be
proposed by Spiffy for the Piccadilly Club. He was trying to establish a
claim thereto now, on the strength of having been at Mrs Gorgon
Tompkins's ball on the previous evening. "It is rather against you than
otherwise," said Spiffy, who was an extremely off-hand little fellow,
and did not interrupt his discourse after he had nodded to me
familiarly; "I can't afford to take you up yet; indeed, what have you
ever done to merit it? and Mrs Gorgon Tompkins has enough to do this
season to keep her own head above water without attempting to float you.
I did what I could for her last night, but she can't expect to go on
with her successes of last year. We had a regular scene at 6 A.M. this
morning, 'in banquet halls deserted'--tears, and all that sort of
thing--nobody present but self, Gorgon, and partner. We took our last
year's list, and compared them with the invitations sent out this year.
The results were painful; only the fag-end of the diplomatic corps had
responded--none of the great European powers present, and our own
Cabinet most slenderly represented. Obliged to resort for young men to
the byways and hedges; no expense spared, and yet the whole affair a
miserable failure."
"Have you tried lobsters boiled in champagne at supper, as a draw?" said
I.
"No," said Spiffy, looking at me with admiration; "I did not know this
sort of thing was in your line, Frank." He had not the least right to
call me Frank; but as everybody, whether they knew him or not, called
him Spiffy, he always anticipated this description of familiarity.
"To tell you the truth, I could pull the Tompkinses through another
season, but I am keeping all my best ideas for the Bodwinkles.
Bodwinkles' first ball is to cost L2000. He wanted me to do it for
L1500, and I should have been able to do it for that if Mrs Bodwinkle
had had any _h_'s; but the _creme, de la creme_ require an absence of
aspirations to be made up to them somehow. Oh, with the extra L500 I can
do it easily," said Spiffy, with an air of self-complacency. "She is a
comparatively young woman, you see, without daughters; that simplifies
matters very much. And then Bodwinkle can be so much more useful to
political men than Gorgon Tompkins; the only fear is that he may commit
himself at a late hour at the supper-table, but I have hit on a notion
which will overcome all these possible _contretemps_."
"What is that?" said I, curiously.
"In confidence, I don't mind telling you, as you are not in the line
yourself; but it is a master-stroke of genius. Like all great ideas, its
merit lies in its simplicity."
"Don't keep us any longer in suspense; I promise not to appropriate it."
"Well," said Spiffy, triumphantly, "I am going to _pay_ the aristocracy
to come!"
"Pay them!" said I, really astounded; "how on earth are you going to get
them to take the money?"
"Ah, that is the secret. Wait till the Bodwinkles' ball. You will see
how delicately I shall contrive it; a great deal more neatly than you do
when you leave your doctor's fee mysteriously wrapped in paper upon his
mantelpiece. I shall no more hurt that high sense of honour, and that
utter absence of anything like snobbism which characterises the best
London Society, than a French cook would offend the nostrils of his
guests with an overpowering odour of garlic; but it is a really grand
idea."
"Worthy of Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, or the first Napoleon," said I;
"posterity will recognise you as a social giant with a mission, if the
small men and the envious of the present day refuse to do so."
"I don't mind telling you," Spiffy went on, "that the idea first
occurred to me in a Scotch donkey-circus, where I won, as a prize for
entering the show, a red plush waistcoat worth five shillings. The fact
is, Bodwinkle is so anxious to get people, he would go to any expense;
he has even offered me a commission on all the accepted invitations I
send out for him, graduated on a scale proportioned to the rank of the
acceptor. I am afraid it would not be considered quite the right thing
to take it; what do you think?"
"I doubt whether society would stand that. You must bring them to it
gradually. At present, I feel sure they would draw the line at a
'commission.' Apropos of the Bodwinkles, I want to have a little private
conversation with you."
"I am awfully done," said Spiffy. "I never went to bed at all last
night. I got some information about Turkish certificates before I went
to the Tompkinses; then I stayed there till past six, and had to come on
here at ten to turn what I knew to account. However, go ahead; what is
it in? Jones here will do it for you. No need of mystery between us.
'Cosmopolitan district' is the sort of thing I can conscientiously
recommend--I'll tell you why: I went down to the lobby of the House last
night on purpose to hear what the fellows were saying who prowl about
there pushing what my wretched tailor would call 'a little bill' through
Committee. It is becoming a sort of 'ring,' and the favourites last
night were light Cosmopolitans."
"What on earth are they as distinguished from heavy?" I asked.
"Jones, show his lordship the stock-list," said Spiffy, with a swagger.
The investigation of the "list" completely bewildered me. Why a L10
share should be worth L19, and a L100 share worth L99, 10s., in the same
company, was not evident on the face of the document before me, so I
looked into Spiffy's.
"Puzzling, isn't it?" said Spiffy.
"Very," I replied. "Now tell me," and I turned innocently towards Mr
Jones, for Spiffy's expression was secretive and mysterious--"explain to
me how it is that a share upon which only L10 has been paid, should be
so much more valuable than one which has been fully paid up."
"Ask the syndicate," said Jones, looking at Spiffy in a significant way.
I felt quite startled, for I expected to see a group of foreigners
composing this institution walk into the room. It was not until I had
looked again to Spiffy for information, and was met by the single open
eye of that gentleman, that I drew an inference and a very long breath.
"Spiffy," I said, "I am getting stifled--the moral atmosphere of this
place is tainted; take me to the sweetest board-room in the
neighbourhood--I want to speak to you on private business."
"Haven't time," said Spiffy, looking at his watch.
"Not to settle little Lady Broadhem's little affair?" said I, in a
whisper.
Spiffy got uncommonly pale, but recovered himself in a second. "All
right, old fellow;" and he poured a few hurried words in an
incomprehensible dialect into Jones's ear, and led the way to the
Suburban Washing-ground Company's board-room, which was the most minute
apartment of the kind I had ever seen.
I shall not enter into the particulars of what passed between Spiffy and
myself on this occasion. In the first place, it is so dry that it would
bore you; in the second place, it was so complicated, and Spiffy's
explanations seemed to complicate it so much the more, that I could not
make it clear to you if I wished; and, in the last, I do not feel
justified in divulging all Lady Broadhem's money difficulties and
private crises. Suffice it to say, that in the course of our
conversation Spiffy was obliged to confide to me many curious facts
connected with his own line of life, and more especially with the
peculiar functions which he exercised in his capacity of a "syndic,"
under the seal of solemn secrecy. Without the hold over him which this
little insight into his transactions has given me, I should not be able
to report so much of our conversation as I have. Nevertheless I thought
it right to tell him how much of it he would shortly see in print.
"Gracious, Frank," said Spiffy, petrified with alarm, "you don't mean to
say you are going to publish all I told you about the Gorgon Tompkinses
and the Bodwinkles? How am I ever to keep them going if you do? Besides,
there are a number of other fellows in the same line as I am. Just
conceive the injury you will inflict upon society generally--nobody will
thank you. The rich 'middles' who are looking forward to this kind of
advancement will be furious; all of us 'promoters' will hate you, and
'_la haute_' will probably cut you. Why can't you keep quiet, instead of
trying to get yourself and everybody else into hot water?"
"Spiffy," said I, solemnly, "when I devoted myself to 'mission work,' as
they call it in Exeter Hall, I counted the cost, as you will see on
referring back to my first chapter. I am still only at the beginning. I
have a long and heavy task before me; but my only excuse for remaining
in society is that I am labouring for its regeneration."
"You won't remain in it long," said Spiffy, "if you carry on in your
present line. What do you want to do? Eradicate snobbism from the
British breast?--never! We should all, from the highest to the lowest,
perish of inanition without it."
"Society," said I, becoming metaphorical, "is like a fluid which is
pervaded by that ingredient which you call 'snobbism,' the peculiarity
of which is that you find it in equal perfection when it sinks to the
bottom and becomes dregs, and when it rises to the surface and becomes
_creme_--though of course it undergoes some curious chemical changes,
according to its position. However, that is only one of the elements
which pollute what should be a transparent fluid. I am subjecting it
just now to a most minute and careful analysis, and I feel sure I shall
succeed in obtaining an interesting 'precipitate.' I do most earnestly
trust both you and the world at large will profit by my experiments."
"Frank, you are a lunatic," said Spiffy, with a yawn, for I was
beginning to bore him. "I suppose I can't help your publishing what you
like, only you will do yourself more harm than me. Let me know when
society has 'precipitated' you out of it, and I will come and see you.
Nobody else will. Good-bye!"
"He calls me a lunatic," I murmured, as I went down-stairs; "I thought
that I should be most likely to hear the truth by applying to the
Honourable Spiffington."
The same reasons which have compelled me to maintain a certain reserve
in relating my conversation with this gentleman prevent me fully
describing the steps which I am at present taking to arrange Lady
Broadhem's affairs, and which will occupy me during the Easter recess.
Now, thank goodness, I think I see my way to preventing the grand crash
which she feared, but I decline to state the amount of my own fortune
which will be sacrificed in the operation. The great inconvenience of
the whole proceeding is the secrecy which it necessarily involves.
Grandon is under the impression that I am gambling on the Stock
Exchange, and is miserable in consequence, because he fancies I add to
that sin the more serious one of denying it. Lady Ursula, whom I have
avoided seeing alone, but who knows that I am constantly plotting in
secret with her mother, is no doubt beginning to think that I am wicked
as well as mad, and is evidently divided between the secret obligation
of keeping the secret of my insanity, and her dread lest in some way or
other her mother should be the victim of it. Lady Bridget is
unmistakably afraid of me. The other day when I went into the
drawing-room and found her alone, she turned as pale as a sheet, jumped
up, and stammered out something about going to find mamma, and rushed
out of the room. Did I not believe in Ursula as in my own existence, I
could almost fancy she had betrayed me. Then there is Broadhem. He is
utterly puzzled. He knows that I am come to pull the family out of the
mess, and put his own cherished little person into a financially sound
condition; and he is equally well assured that I would not make this
sacrifice without feeling certain of marrying his sister. But, in the
first place, that any man should sacrifice anything, either for his
sister or any other woman, is a mystery to Broadhem; and, in the second,
I strongly suspect that Ursula has said something which makes him very
doubtful whether she is engaged to me or not. Poor girl! I feel for her.
Was ever a daughter and sister before placed in the embarrassing
position of leaving her own mother and brother in the delusion that she
was engaged to be married to a man who had never breathed to her the
subject of his love, much less of matrimony? Then Spiffy and Lady
Broadhem's lawyer both look upon the marriage as settled: how else can
they account for the trouble I am taking, and the liberality I am
displaying? There is something mysterious, moreover, in the terms upon
which I am in the house. Lady Broadhem is beginning to think it
unnatural that I should not care to see more of Ursula; and whenever she
is not quite absorbed with considering her own affairs, is making the
arrangement known among mammas by the expression, "bringing the young
people together"--as if any young people who really cared to be
together, could not bring themselves together without mamma or anybody
else interfering. Fortunately Lady Broadhem is so much more taken up
with her own speculations than with either her daughter's happiness or
mine, that I am always able to give the conversation a City turn when
she broaches the delicate subject of Ursula. How Ursula manages on these
occasions I cannot conceive, but I do my best to prevent Lady Broadhem
talking about me to her, as I always say mysteriously, that if she does,
"it will spoil everything"--an alarming phrase, which produces an
immediate effect. Still it is quite clear that this kind of thing can't
continue long. If I can only keep matters going for a few days more,
they will all be out of town for Easter, and that will give me time to
breathe. As it is, it is impossible to shut my eyes to the fact, that my
best friend is beginning to doubt me--that the girl I love dreads
me--and that the rest of the family, and those sufficiently connected
with it to observe my proceedings, either pity, laugh at, or despise me.
This, however, by no means prevents their using their utmost endeavours
to ruin me. That is the present state of matters. The situation cannot
remain unchanged during the next four weeks. Have I your sympathies,
dear reader? Do you wish me well out of it?