HASTE TO THE WEDDING.
THINGS were not going very smoothly now with Mr. Donovan Bulwrag. Three
of the four months allowed him by his father had passed already; yet
no date was fixed, or seemed likely to be fixed, for the great event
which was to make a wealthy man of him. The old man was urgent, and
could not be brought to postpone his revenge to the convenience of his
son, for he had learned already that this chip of the old block was of
a grain quite as crooked and cross-fibred as his own. His violent and
vindictive heart was burning for the day when he should trample on the
pride of the woman who had been his ruin, and had married again and
lived in luxury, while putrid fish was his diet. Neither was revenge
his only motive. Some provision must be made for him, something better
than two pounds a week, and a wretched den in London, as soon as ever
he chose to apply to his aged father’s men of business; and this he
could not do (without upsetting all his plans) until he had revealed
himself to that haughty woman.
“If you choose to make your own son a beggar, and to turn your
daughters into the streets—you must. That is all I can say. I can do
no more. I lost a lot of money to-day, all through you. I should never
have invested sixpence, but for you. It does seem a little too hard
upon a fellow, when he is doing all he knows to please a man who never
helped him.”
It was on the night of the Derby day, and father and son were holding
their usual weekly interview in the Green Park. The older man was much
better dressed and cleaner than he had been; but the other kept at a
prudent distance, and took care to smoke throughout the time. He had
looked into books, and found that the disorder is sometimes contagious,
and sometimes not.
“Whose fault is it that I have never helped you?” the cripple asked
disdainfully. “Don’t walk so fast; my feet are not like yours. You make
me even pay for my cab both ways. I came to please you. You shall pay
for my cab. And you shall pay for it a little further too. I demand to
be established on the premises. You have plenty of room; and as you
said once, it can be done without any one the wiser. How can I tell
that she won’t run away, the moment you are married? And I want to be
where I can see my daughters. In a lonely rambling, ramshackle house
like that, you could put me up easily. Why, I saw the very place,
when I went round there after dark. Who ever goes near the Captain’s
workshops? Three of them quite away from all the other rooms. I only
want one, and I will have it. It would save me ten shillings a week, as
well as cab fare. They won’t take me anywhere, in the vilest den, for
less than that, when they see what I am. Christian country isn’t it?
Why, the Pulcho Indians are better Christians than you are. Get that
room ready by this day week.”
“If I do, you must give me another month’s grace. It will be a terrible
risk to take. Every one watches us so about there; we have gained such
a reputation.”
“And I shall increase it, my son, as soon as known. Your mother never
cared what was thought of her by any one. She will now have a fine case
to defy the public with. I go into that room, this day week. My goods
are not as manifold as they were. I had twelve horses at my command at
San Luis. Ah, we all have our ups and downs. I am on the up scale now.”
Downy was very loth to receive his father so. He knew that it might be
done safely enough, if the old man would only be cautious and discreet.
But that was the very point he was sure to fail in. He would have been
a great man by this time, perhaps a Dictator of three sprawling States,
if his prudence had been equal to his strong will and valour. Some day
his history may be written; and if it should be done with any skill,
the reader will be likely to conclude that he has come across yet
another instance of good material thrown away.
“I don’t like it,” said the dutiful son; “why can’t you stay where you
are, till it is over?” That is to say, his own wedding-day.
“Because I believe that you will make her bolt. At least, nobody can
make her do anything unless she chooses. But if she heard of me, she
would bolt like a shot. And a nice fool I should be after that. It is
no good arguing. In I go, this day week; or else I leave my card at the
front door.”
Donovan Bulwrag contended vainly. His father was as stubborn as
himself, and a hundred-fold as reckless. What had this afflicted mortal
to be afraid of now? His sense of paternity must have been strong, and
the staple of his nature something better than hardware, that he should
have lain still so long in his misery, poverty, and ignominy, rather
than assert himself, and shock the public, and destroy his son’s last
hope of high position.
Downy showed more than his usual craft, in this difficult crisis of his
fortunes. He extorted from his father, before he let him in, a pledge
that he would keep himself out of sight, and never move without his
leave, for at least another month. The room in which he stored him was
cold, and dark, and damp, and entirely out of view from all the people
of the house; yet quite like a palace to the poor old man, after all
the low dens he had been lurking in. He was smuggled in at night, and
had to wait upon himself, receiving all his food from his son’s hands
alone. The window had been fitted with dark wooden blinds, for some
of the Professor’s experiments, and the obscurity was deepened by the
great ilex tree.
The Earl of Clerinhouse, though one of the wealthiest men of the day,
lived a very quiet life. His health was not strong, and he hated all
display, and had no turn for sporting, or gambling, or politics, or
any other form of noise and push. He cared not for books, or art, or
agriculture, or women, or the drama, or the pleasures of the table. He
was satisfied to take the world as he found it, and to keep himself out
of it, whenever he could. Not for the sake of saving money, for no one
could charge him with avarice; and when he saw good to be done, he did
it in the most generous and even lavish style. The few who knew him
intimately loved him deeply for his gentleness, simplicity, and good
will; and often it was said of him, and not untruly, that he had never
spoken harshly to any human being.
His father had been a great city man, keen, energetic, and
enterprising; but though the present Earl retained his interest in
great houses founded by his father, he never concerned himself about
the money-market, and entered into no speculations. The one ray of
romance in his quiet life had fallen across it when he was quite
young. When the bright suns of Sunbury were in their zenith, he had
been dazzled and smitten for a while by the lustre of Miss Monica.
Happily for him, his suit was vain; he had too little “go” in him to
suit her taste; and he married a lady better fitted for him, who left
him a widower with one daughter. But the arrogant beauty retained
and asserted—when it became of importance to her—a certain strange
influence upon his tranquil mind.
He had never liked Donovan Bulwrag, and shrank from entrusting his
treasure to him. For his daughter Clara was the treasure of his life,
the only object for which he cared to preserve his feeble vitality.
Lady Clara, now in her twentieth year, resembled her father almost too
closely. She was gentle, simple, and unpretending, apt to think the
best of everybody, and to yield to a will more robust than her own. She
was likely to make a most admirable wife for a strong and good man,
who would cherish her; but with a coarse, unfeeling husband, she was
certain to pine away and die; for her mind was very sensitive, and her
constitution weak.
Seeing little of the world, and knowing less about it, this graceful
and elegant girl had been induced, partly by the mother’s heroic
commendations, to fix her affections upon Downy Bulwrag. How any
girl could like that fellow it is hard to say; there was something
so disgusting in his countenance to me, and his slow, deliberate,
sarcastic speech, as if he thought over every word he uttered, and
passed it through his mind to make it nasty. However, she considered
him a hero; and so he was—a hero of cold cunning, and hot wickedness.
“You have at him, and I will have at her,” said this hero to his
mother, as they drove to Berkeley Square; “it can’t go on like this.
Why, I scarcely dare go out. Why, the fellows at the _Fan-tail_ were
talking all about me, when I dropped in for an hour last night. I knew
it by the way they began about the weather, and that ass of a Grogan
whispered—‘Hush! here he is.’ I shall tell her I am off to Nova Zembla
next week; and you lay it on thick about what Dr. Medley said. Work the
old muff upon that tack, and about the feeble heart-action, and the
nervous system, and all that stuff. But let me have the little doll all
to myself.”
Mrs. Fairthorn sighed, for she had quick perception, and some good
behind all her badness. “I fear that the little doll is too good for
you,” she answered; and he smiled at her.
How they managed it, matters little; but they thought they had managed
it rarely well. No doubt they told lies pat as puddings, and plentiful
as blackberries. Tho Lord, who settles all things well—as we sometimes
find out in the end—allowed them this little bit of triumph, to
increase their discomfiture. But after all, I have no ill will, and am
sorry that they had so much.
“How beautifully everything has gone off, Don!” said the lady, when
she had settled her stately form in the watered silk again; “you see
what a little tact can do. I put it as a favour to that poor thing. The
objections have come from those wretched lawyers. The poor Earl would
not hear a word about the money. I can’t think what I have been about,
not to take the bull by the horns long ago. But the fault was yours. I
could never trust you. Well, I was never more pleased in my life. It
will be in the _Morning Post_ to-morrow. Did you see how the poor Earl
looked at me? I can wind him round my finger.”
“The Professor may go to the bottom with his trawl; and then who knows
what might happen?” Donovan spoke with a bitter smile; he had never
entirely forgiven his mother for her second marriage.
“Don’t be so shocking, Don. I am ashamed of you. Well, a month is not
very long to wait; and there is a great deal to see to. Fizzy and
Jerry will be bridesmaids, of course, and I must not be quite a dowdy.
How that pest of a Dulcamara will ko-tow! She threatened me with the
Queen’s Bench yesterday. I am not sure that I shall give her any order.
I should like to break her heart, and I know how to do it. If I put the
whole into Madame Fripré’s hands, Dulcamara would never look up again.
But her cut is so inferior to Dulcamara’s. Well, I need not make my
mind up, until to-morrow.”
“I think you had better keep the whole thing quiet, and pull it off
without any fuss at all. The Earl hates pomps and vanities, so does
Clara, and so do I. We had better have no humbug.”
“And be married at a registry office, I suppose. None of that mean,
shabby work for me. Everything shall be left in my hands, and I’ll
see that things are done properly. If it was only to vex your Aunt
Arabella, after her trumpery rudeness to you, I should insist upon
decency and comfort. I know how to cut her to the heart, and I intend
to do it. The very day before the wedding, I shall write—‘Dearest
Arabella,—We have been disappointed at the last moment by the dear
Duchess of Coventry. Her Grace is afflicted with a bilious attack.
Would you mind taking her place to-morrow, and excuse the brevity of
this invitation?’ I should like to see her passionate face, when she
gets that.”
“Don’t be a fool, mother. You know, after all, you and I are the proper
heirs to her estates, though she can dispose of them as she likes. She
dislikes us; but she is an upright woman. It would be mad to offend her
fatally.”
“She has cheated me out of house and land. There is no primogeniture
among women. I simply did the thing she was going to do. She has
rolled in money, and let me roll in the dirt. None of her posthumous
benevolence for me! You will never see me grovelling at that woman’s
feet.”
At the rehearsal of her wrongs, her violent temper rose and swelled, as
a dog’s wrath waxes with his own bark. She stood up in the carriage,
and crushed her head dress. This doubled her fury, and she turned upon
her son.
“And you—I should like to know what you are doing in my house—my house,
if you please, not yours. You think I know nothing about it, do you?
No more of it! From this very hour, you drop your disgraceful bachelor
ways, or I fetch the police and rout out those rooms. Now, remember
what I say. When I say a thing, I do it.”
“You are altogether wrong. There is nothing of the sort;” Downy
answered in a stern voice that cowed her; “to the last day of your
life, you will repent it, if you dare to go meddling there.”
“_Dare_ is not a word to use to me,” she answered in a sullen tone,
and closed her lips. If she feared any one in the world she feared
her own son Donovan. The difference between her will and his was as
that between a torrent and the sea. Hers was force, and his was power.
Sometimes she was sorry for her haste and fury; but in him there was no
repentance.
He left her to herself, and said no more. In one thing they were much
alike. Neither of them had great faith in words, whether used to them
or by them. Having little faith in what they heard, they expected
little for what they said. It was no affront to either of them, but
an act of justice, to doubt every word of their mouths, because their
mouths were wells of leasing.
“You will have to clear out, poor old chap;” said Downy that night
to his father, whom he now regarded with rough affection, as well as
fitful pity. “All settled now, about you know what. In three weeks or
so, I shall have to slope. Who would bring you your grub, but your
dutiful son? What is it about the ravens? And worse than that—she has
smoked you already. In spite of all pledges, you have been out at
night.”
“Who could stay mewed up, night and day? Let her smoke what she likes;
I have got a pipeful for her.”
“Yes, and for me, and yourself too. Bedlam, or hospital, or workhouse
for us all, if she finds you here, before the job is done. After that,
have it out, when you like. No dutiful son interferes between his
parents. If this is broken off, there will be no shilling left, for you
to have sixpence out of.”
It may fairly be hoped that he had some other plan, though as yet he
durst not mention it, for saving them both from the awful meeting of
which he spoke so lightly.
“How am I to know that it is settled even now? You have put me off so
many times. I might as well be on the _Simon Pure_ again.”
“I will show it you to-morrow in the paper, announced for an early
day—and it needs be an early one.”
“Sorry to doubt you. Not at all a truthful family. Three weeks more,
my son; and that’s every hour. Let her come spying, if she likes. She
never could keep her nose out of anything, or perhaps I shouldn’t be
quite as I am. I am sorry for my lady; I only hope the pleasure will be
mutual.”