A HARD MORSEL
Like the feasts of Apicius, that dinner at the London Tavern was
protracted to an unconscionable length. Its dishes were rich, various,
and indigestible, nothing being served _au naturel_ and without
"garnish" but the brave simplicity of the guests.
"Wines too there were, that would have slain young Ammon,"
and old comrades seldom part under such conditions without the
consumption of much tobacco in the small hours. Nevertheless, St.
Josephs rose next morning fresh and hopeful as a boy. He ordered
his horse for an early canter in the Park, and shared the Row with
divers young ladies of tender years but dauntless courage, who crammed
their ponies along at a pace that caused manes, and tails, and golden
hair to float horizontal on the breeze, defiant even of that mounted
inspector, whose heart though professionally intolerant of "furious
riding," softened to a pigmy with snub nose and rosy cheeks, on a tiny
quadruped as round, as fat, and as saucy-looking as itself.
St. Josephs felt in charity with all mankind, and returned to breakfast
so light of heart that he ought to have known, under the invariable law
of compensation, some great misfortune was in store.
He had little appetite; happiness, like sorrow, when excessive, never
wants to eat; but he dressed himself again with the utmost care, and
after exhausting every expedient to while away the dragging hours,
started at half-past eleven for the abode of his ladye-love.
Do what he would, it was scarcely twelve when he arrived at her door,
where his summons remained so long unanswered, that he had leisure to
speculate on the possibility of Miss Douglas being indisposed and not
yet awake. So he rang next time stealthily, and, as it were, under
protest, but in vain.
The General then applied himself to the area bell. "They'll come
directly, now," he argued; "they'll think it's the beer!" And sure
enough the street-door was quickly unfastened, with more turning of
keys, clanking of chains, and withdrawal of bolts than is usual during
the middle of the season, in the middle of the day.
A very grimy old woman met him on the threshold, and peering
suspiciously out of her keen, deep-set eyes, demanded his business in a
hoarse voice, suggestive of gin.
"Miss Douglas b'aint here," was the startling answer to his inquiries.
"She be gone away for good. Hoff this morning, I shouldn't wonder,
afore you was out of bed."
"Gone!" he gasped. "This morning! Did she leave no message?"
"None that I knows of. The servants didn't say nothink about it;
leastways, not to _me_."
"But she's coming back?"
"Not likely! The maid _did_ suppose as they was a-going for good and
all. It's no business of mine. I'm not Miss Douglas's servant. I'm
a-taking care of the 'ouse for the landlord, I am. It's time I was
a-tidying of it up now."
With this broad hint, she proceeded to shut the door in his face, when
the General, recovering his presence of mind, made use of the only
argument his experience had taught him was universal and conclusive.
Her frown relaxed with the touch of money on her palm. "You're a
gentleman, you are," she observed approvingly. "Won't ye step in, sir?
It's bad talking with the door in your 'and."
He complied, and sat down on one of the bare hall-chairs, feeling as he
had felt once before, when badly hit, in the Punjaub.
She went on with her dusting, talking all the time. "You see they
sent round for me first thing in the morning; and I says to Mrs.
Jones--that's my landlady, sir,"--(dropping a curtsey), "'Mrs. Jones,'
says I, 'whatever can they be up to,' says I, 'making such an early
flitting?' says I--"
"But do you mean they've left no letter?" he interrupted, starting from
his seat; "no directions--no address? Are all the servants gone? Has
Miss Douglas taken much luggage with her? Did she go away in a cab? Oh,
woman! woman! tell me all you know! It's a matter of life and death!"
She looked at him askance, privately opining that, early as it was, the
gentleman had been drinking, and sympathising with him none the less
for that impression.
"They're off," said she stubbornly; "and they've took everythink along
with them--bags and boxes, and what not. There was a man round after
the keys--not half an hour gone. I should say as they wasn't coming
back, none of 'em, no more."
This redundancy of negatives forcibly expressed her hopelessness of
their return, and the General's good sense told him it was time wasted
to cross-question his informant any further. Summoning his energies,
he reflected that the post-office would be the best place whereat to
prosecute inquiries, so he bade the old woman farewell, with all the
fortitude he could muster, leaving her much impressed by his manners,
bearing, and profuse liberality.
At the post-office, however (an Italian warehouse round the corner),
they knew nothing. The General, at his wits' end, bethought him of
those livery-stables where Satanella kept her namesake, the redoubtable
black mare.
Here his plight excited the utmost interest and commiseration.
"Certainly. The General should have all the assistance in their power.
Of course, the lady had forgotten to leave her address, no doubt.
Ladies _was_ careless, sometimes, in such matters. A _beautiful_
'orse-woman," the livery-stable keeper understood, "an' kep' two
remarkably clever ones for her own riding. Had an idea they went away
this very morning. Might be mistaken. John could tell. John was the
head-ostler. It was John's business to know." So a bell rang, and John,
in a long-sleeved waistcoat, sleeking a close-cropped head, appeared
forthwith.
"Black mare and chestnut 'oss," said John decidedly. "Gone this
morning; groom took with him saddles, clothing, and everything. Paid up
to the end of their week. Looked like travelling--had their knee-caps
on. Groom a close chap; wouldn't say where. Wish he (John) could find
out. Left a setting-muzzle behind, and would like to send it after him."
There seemed nothing to be done here, and the General was fain to
retrace his steps, hurt, anxious, angry, and more puzzled when he
reached home than he had ever been in his life.
For an hour or two, the whole thing seemed so impossible, and the
absurdity of the situation struck him as so ridiculous, that he sat
idly in his chair to wait for tidings. In this nineteenth century, he
told himself, people could not disappear from the surface of society,
and leave no sign. Rather, like the sea-bird diving in the waves, if
they go down in one place, they must come up in another. There were
no kidnappings now, no sendings off to the Plantations, no forcible
abductions of ladies young or old. Then his heart turned sick, and his
blood ran cold, while he recalled more than one instance in his own
experience, where individuals had suddenly vanished from their homes
and never been heard of again.
Stung to action by such thoughts, he collected his ideas to organise
a comprehensive system of pursuit, that should embrace enquiries at
all the railway-stations, cab-stands, and turnpikes in and about the
metropolis, with the assistance of Scotland Yard in the background.
Then he remembered how an old brother-officer had told him, only the
other day, of a similar search made by himself, and attended with
success. So he resolved to consult that comrade without delay. It was
now two o'clock. He would find him eating luncheon at his club. In five
minutes, the General was in a hansom cab, and in less than ten, leaped
out on the steps of that military resort.
Had he gone there an hour ago, it would have spared him a good deal of
mental agitation, though perhaps any amount of anxiety would have been
preferable to the dull, sickening resignation which succeeded a blow
that could no longer be modified, parried, nor escaped. In after-times,
the General looked back to those ten minutes in the hansom cab as the
close of an era in his life. Henceforth, every object in nature seemed
to have lost something of its colouring, and the sun never shone so
bright again.
In the hall an obsequious porter handed him a letter. He staggered when
he recognised the familiar handwriting on the envelope, and drew his
breath hard for the effort before he tore it open.
There were several pages, some of them crossed. He retired to the
strangers'-room, and sat down to peruse the death-warrant of his
happiness.
"You will forgive me," it began, "because you are the kindest, the
best, the most generous of men; but I should never forgive myself the
blow I feel I am now inflicting, were it not that I regard your pride,
your character, your high sense of honour, before your happiness.
General, I am unfit to be your wife; not because my antecedents are
somewhat obscure--_you_ know my history, and that I have no reason to
be ashamed of it; not because I undervalue the happiness of so high and
enviable a lot--any woman, as I have told you more than once, would
be proud of your choice; but because you deserve, and could so well
appreciate, the unalloyed affection, the utter devotion, that are not
mine to give. _Your_ wife should have no thought but for you, no hopes
independent of you, no memories in which you do not form a part. She
should be wrapped up in your existence, identified with you, body and
soul. All this I am _not_. I never have been--I never can be now. Had I
entertained a lower opinion of your merits, admired and _cared for_ you
less, I would have kept my promise faithfully, and we might have jogged
on like many another couple, comfortably enough. But _you_ ought to win
more than mere _comfort_ in married life. You merit, and would expect,
_happiness_. How could I bear to see my hero disappointed? For you are
my hero--my _beau-idéal_ of a gentleman--and my standard is a very
high one, or you and I had never been so unhappy as I firmly believe
we both are at this moment. It is in vain to regret, and murmur, and
speculate on what might have been, if everything, including one's own
identity, were different. There is but one line to take now, even at
the eleventh hour. Some day you will acknowledge that I was right. We
must never meet again. I have taken such precautions as can baffle, I
do believe, even your energy and resource. You have often said nobody
was so determined when I had made up my mind. I am resolved that you
shall never find out what has become of me; and I entreat you--I
adjure you--if you love me--nay, as you love me--not to try! So now,
farewell--a long farewell, that it pains me sore to say. I shall never
forget you. In all my conflict of feelings, in all my self-reproach and
bitter sorrow, when I think of your pain, I cannot bring myself to wish
we had never met. I am proud of your notice and your regard--proud to
remain under obligations to you--proud to have loved you so far as my
false, wicked nature had the power. Even now I can say, though you put
me out of your heart, do not let me pass entirely from your memory.
Think sometimes, and not unkindly, of your wilful, wayward--
"Blanche."
So it was all over.
"It's a good letter," murmured the General; "but I prefer the one Julia
wrote to Juan." Then he read it through again, and found, as is usually
the case, that the second perusal reversed his impression of the first.
Did she _really_ mean he was to abstain from all attempt to follow her?
He examined the envelope; it bore the stamp of the General Post Office;
the contents certainly afforded him no clue, yet, judging by analogy,
he argued that no woman would lay such stress on the precautions
she had taken if she did not wish their efficacy to be proved. When
he found, however, that nothing short of police-detectives and
newspaper advertisements would avail him, he took a juster view of her
intentions, and in the chivalry of his nature resolved that under this
great affliction, as in every other condition of their acquaintance, he
would yield implicitly to her wish.
So he went back into the world, grave, kindly, and courteous as before.
There were a few more grey hairs in his whiskers, and he avoided
ladies' society altogether; otherwise, to the unobservant eye, he
was little altered; but a dear old friend whom he had nursed through
cholera at Varna, and dragged from under a dead horse at Lucknow, took
him into a bay-window of the club-library, and thus addressed him--
"My good fellow, you're looking shamefully seedy. Idleness never suited
you. Nothing like work to keep old horses sound. Why don't you apply
for employment? There's always something to do in the East."