Transcribed from the 1886 edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Cover]
UNVARNISHED TALES.
BY
WILLIAM MACKAY.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY AND CO.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1886.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
* * * * *
TO
REGINALD SHIRLEY BROOKS.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. A QUEER QUEST 1
II. THE SAWDUST MAN’S CURSE 11
III. LORD LUNDY’S SNUFF-BOX 23
IV. “ONE WAS RENT AND LEFT TO DIE” 32
V. THE GRIGSBY LIVING 41
VI. RES EST SACRA MISER 51
VII. MR. GREY 60
VIII. THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN 69
IX. A PHILANTHROPIC “MASHER” 78
X. A DISHONOURED BILL 87
XI. A MAN OF GENIUS 96
XII. A DIGNIFIED DIPSOMANIAC 106
XIII. “OLD BOOTS” 115
XIV. A MISSING HEIRESS 124
XV. TEDDY MARTIN’S BRIEF 135
XVI. BLUEBEARD’S CUPBOARD 144
XVII. TRUE TO POLL 154
XVIII. JOHN PHILP, MASTER CARPENTER 166
XIX. PICTURES ON THE LINE 177
XX. THE DEVIL’S PLAYTHINGS 186
XXI. LOVE AND A DIARY 199
I.
_A QUEER QUEST_.
IN the _Times_ newspaper of Monday, 1st July, 18–, there appeared a
notice of Mr. White’s last novel. The notice—for one cannot dignify with
the name of review an article which did not exceed a quarter of a
column—contained the following sentence:—
“Mr. White’s novels appear to us to lack but one element. Having
achieved that one thing needful, Mr. White at once and without cavil
takes his place in the first rank of modern novelists. In one word,
Mr. White must learn to study Human Nature from the life. His
characters are too often evolved from his inner consciousness, and as
beings thus produced are apt to be wanting in backbone, it is not
surprising that many of this popular author’s works are weak and
flabby—shadows without substance—pictures without colour. If Mr.
White were to give one-half of the time to the study of the men and
women by whom he is surrounded, which he gives to the elaboration of
plot and the cultivation of style, we do not know that there is any
seat in the republic of letters which we would deny him.”
Mr. White was a timid gentleman, with thin reddish hair—a very tall
forehead and weak eyes. He was also a very well tailored man, and lived
in a neatly-appointed villa, in the Hilgrove Road, St. John’s Wood, N.W.
He was married, but had no children. He was by profession a briefless
barrister, but he made his name by writing novels. It so happened that
the public applauded Mr. White from the very first moment that he
appealed to them—at least in book form: his tentative efforts in
periodicals having fallen very short of creating a _furor_. _His_
nonsense, which, it must be confessed, was not of a very rollicking
description, suited _their_ nonsense. And that was the whole secret of
his success. Being a very industrious man, he wrote a great many
fictions, and being modest withal, attributed his fame to hard work
rather than to any endowment of genius.
When Mr. White neglected his grilled bone, his buttered toast, his hot
coffee, and his new-laid egg, and seemed spell-bound by what appeared in
the _Times_ newspaper, his wife instinctively knew that there was a
notice of her husband’s book in that great organ, and she guessed by the
twitching of his mouth, and the flushing of his face, that the notice was
the reverse of favourable.
“It is quite true. It is quite true,” said Mr. White, aloud, but to
himself, as he laid the paper down.
“What is quite true?” asked Mrs. White, who, while greatly appreciating
the pecuniary results of her husband’s labour, had but little sympathy
with the work itself.
“I am all wrong,” he replied, grimly.
“Good gracious! What is the matter with you?”
“I am wanting in backbone,” he explained, gloomily—“criminally deficient
in backbone.”
“Why, John, you must be mad,” said the wife of his bosom. And, indeed,
there was a seeming irrelevancy in his remarks, which favoured his
helpmate’s theory. But John knew quite well what _he_ was about.
“Tell Edward to fetch my coat and hat,” he said, having trifled with his
breakfast instead of eating it like a Briton; “and lend me your
scissors.”
The dutiful young woman handed her lord and master the scissors, with
which he proceeded to cut out the _Times_ review—the which, when
carefully abstracted, he placed in his pocket-book. But before Edward
came with his coat and hat, Mrs. White, with natural and justifiable
curiosity asked,—
“Where are you going so early, John?”
“I am going,” said John, quoting from the article, “I am going among the
men and women by whom I am surrounded. I am going to study human
character from the life.”
Mrs. White shrugged her little shoulders, elevated her little eyebrows,
kissed her husband, and when she heard the hall-door close behind him,
she said very quietly, as though she were making an observation which did
not affect her even remotely,—
“He doesn’t seem to study _me_ very much.”
John White’s great crony was Anthony Lomax, of Paper Buildings. And John
White took a ticket to the Temple Station, being determined to consult
his old friend on this new revelation which the great _Times_ newspaper
had opened up to him. He was fortunate in finding Mr. Lomax at home,
devouring a frugal meal of brandy and soda, preparatory to appearing
before Vice-Chancellor Bacon in the celebrated case of Breeks _v._
Woolfer.
“You see,” said John White, with characteristic modesty, “you see I never
thought of achieving a first rank. My books take well and I make
money—thank heaven. But this fellow in the newspaper absolutely says
that I am possessed of genius!”
“And haven’t _I_ always said it?” asked Tony, with an offended air;
“haven’t we all always said it?”
“Yes; but you are friends, don’t you know?”
“Not a bit. Do I ever tell Jones that he has genius? Do I ever tell
Sandford that he has genius—although he _is_ a Fellow of Merton? Did I
ever tell Barlow that his works would set the Thames on fire? Never!
Friendship in my case never interferes with strict impartiality.”
This pleased Mr. White. He absolutely blushed with pleasure. A kind
word from Lomax was more real satisfaction to him than a page of praise
from the _Sultry Review_—which is not, perhaps, rating the eulogy of Mr.
Lomax very highly.
“And are they right about the—the want of backbone?” he inquired,
nervously, “and the necessity to study character from the life?”
“As right as nine-pence, my boy. Doctors analyse dead bodies, and pull
live ones about. Artists draw, I am told, from the nude. Actors imitate
particular individuals. Yes, I think the _Times_ rascal is absolutely
right.”
“Then I shall commence and study from the life at once. But where now,”
he asked plaintively, “where would you advise me to commence? You don’t
know of any very likely place for the acquirement of the backbone?”
“Well, my boy, there’s Breeks and Woolfer; if you’ll step over to the
Vice-Chancellor’s Court—it’s quite full of character.”
But the novelist only shuddered at the mention of the case, and saying
gently that he thought he would take his own course, bade his friend
“Good-bye,” and departed much disturbed in his mind at the magnitude and
amount of the task the censor of Printing-house Square had set for him.
* * * * *
Three months and a couple of weeks had passed away. It was now the 15th
of October, 18–, and Tony Lomax once more sat in his chambers. He had
been away for his holidays, and had just returned, brown and invigorated,
and ready to grapple with and subdue that insatiable monster, “Breeks and
Woolfer.” He was sitting with his legs stretched well under his table,
his coat was off notwithstanding the chilliness of the weather, and his
white shirt-sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He looked the picture
of rude health and high animal spirits.
A feeble knock on the panel of his door. A loud and cheery “Come in”
from Tony. The door opened, and Mr. White entered, glanced nervously
round, and gliding up to Lomax, said in a whisper,—
“Are we alone?”
Lomax could hardly believe his eyes. The dapper little friend of his
youth had grown prematurely old. His thin red hair was no longer neatly
arranged. His weak eyes had a wild and nervous shifting. His hands
moved convulsively. His lips were dry, and his throat—to judge from his
voice—parched.
“What in heaven’s name—!” exclaimed Lomax, starting from his seat.
“Hush,” said the other, in extreme agitation, “don’t speak so loudly.
_They might hear you_.”
“Who might hear me?”
“The human characters—from the life—don’t you know. I have plenty of
backbone now—too much, Tony. It’s very awful!”
Lomax saw how it was, attempted to calm him, and induced him to take a
seat, and to release his hat from his trembling fingers. Then he said,
with something of a tremor in his voice,—
“Now, old man, tell us all about it.”
John White looked nervously about the room, again asked whether they were
quite alone, and commenced, in a husky whisper, to tell his narrative,
with awful rapidity.
“It was all right at first, Tony, and I made some capital notes, but in a
few days I tired. All the human characters seemed so much alike when
studied in the life. So brutally alike. It pained me. The monotony of
it made me giddy. But then the worst came, Tony. Whenever I went out to
study a character—from the life—the character began to study me. I tried
to brave it and bear up against it, because you know, Tony, the _Times_
said I had genius and only wanted backbone. But just fancy to yourself
setting out to study murderers and thieves, and all sorts and conditions
of unmentionable men, and the murderers and thieves and
unmentionables—from the life—turning round and studying you! What do you
think of that? Study _you_—d’ye hear?—from the life! Ay, and follow
you, too—to your club, to your home:—to your very bed!”
The trembling hands searched for the hat. Mr. White had jumped from his
chair, and uttered a wild shriek, that sounded like “_Here they
are_—_from the life_,” and had fled out on to the pavement of Paper
Buildings.
Poor White died at Hanwell just two years ago—and Lomax married his
widow. She, poor creature, finds in her new husband a practical person,
whom she can understand, and seems all the happier for the change.
II.
_THE SAWDUST MAN’S CURSE_.
HARP ALLEY is a little nagged passage nestling under the heavy shadows of
Drury Lane Theatre. None of the merchants who pursue business in the
reeking enclosure can be truthfully described as doing a roaring trade.
A manufacturer of spangles, who has hidden his commercial light under the
bushel of Harp Alley, does a brisk business during the months preceding
Christmas—his stock being in great demand for the decoration of the
gorgeous characters of Pantomime. No one ever stops at the old book
shop, where the same old plays which were offered ten years ago in a box
at a penny each are offered at a penny still. And a steel engraving of
David Garrick as Richard the Third, greatly perturbed by apparitions, has
during the same interval failed to find a purchaser at half-a-crown.
There is an old clothes shop in the Alley, owned by an adventurous
speculator of the Semitic persuasion, where you can borrow a dress suit
for the evening, and become a magnificent swell on the new hire system.
The best trade done in Harp Alley is done by the owner of the “Piping
Bulfinch”—a public-house much resorted to in the present day by
scene-shifters, stage carpenters, property men, and other humble
ornaments of the British Drama, with a fine capacity for four ale and bad
language. At the time of this story, the inner bar of the “Piping
Bulfinch”—a reserved space with a door marked “private”—was the resort of
certain actors and authors having a greater wealth of brain than of
pocket. In those days the cuff-shooter was not, and a _jeune premier_
would be satisfied with something less than the wages of an ambassador.
Only the very superior sort of actor and manager and dramatic author
belonged to a Club. The rank and file met unostentatiously in bars, and
did their business or criticised their neighbours over “goes” of gin and
whiskey, or half pints of ale and stout. I do not intend to mention here
the names of those who were wont to meet of an afternoon at the “Piping
Bulfinch.” Some are dead. Some are alive and famous. Others are alive
and wrecks. And all of them seem desirous to forget the struggling
period when they patronised the snug but sombre hostlery in Harp Alley.
Informally established as a _réunion_, this little society became known
to the outer world, and the gentle layman penetrated to the recesses of
the inner bar and forced his babbling company upon the playwright and the
player. So that in self-defence the mummers and the drama-makers hired
from the landlord of the “Piping Bulfinch” a large room that opened off
the public bar. Towards defraying the expenses, each member of the
coterie subscribed one shilling per week. They had a room of their own.
They were now a Club; and that is the true history of the establishment
of the Otway—for such was the style and title which these able but
impecunious men of genius gave to this Association, when shrinking from
contact with the profane vulgar, they withdrew behind the closed door of
their own private and particular room.
And every Wednesday came to be known as Sawdust Day.
In those days of struggle what small incidents afforded interest and even
excitement! and the weekly advent of the man bearing the sack of sawdust
which was to be sprinkled on the floor of the Club-room, was looked
forward to with keen enjoyment. He was a strange reflective man—the man
who bore in this weekly sacrifice to respectability—this thin and
shifting substitute for a carpet—this indoor Goodwin sands. But he
greatly prized the opportunity afforded him of entering the Club. He
laughed respectfully (to himself) at the jokes which were bandied about.
He accepted with gratified smile the chaff which was levelled at him and
at his sawdust. He became indeed a part of the Club itself, and
lengthened his weekly visit as much as possible, always discovering, when
it appeared time to go, some refractory spot on the floor which required
replenishing and smoothing. The Sawdust man may have been a broken down
dramatist, a poor poet whose literary wares were a drug in the market;
and here in this bright association of wits and good fellows he found
solace once a-week.
Twelve happy months sped over the grey locks and closely shaven features
of the Sawdust man. And the fifty-two days of congenial fellowship—so,
poor man, he chose to consider it—compensated for the three hundred and
thirteen other days upon which he sprinkled the yellow refuse among the
unsympathetic feet of the market-men in the public-houses about Covent
Garden. Pride, we are credibly informed, led to the overthrow of the
Prince of Darkness; and Pride entering into the bosom of a new member of
the Otway led to eventual decline and fall of that remarkable society.
In an evil moment it was proposed at a meeting of the Committee that the
Club-room should be carpeted! After a long and angry discussion the
resolution was carried by a bare majority. The carpet was purchased, and
the poor dealer in the waste of the saw-pits was dismissed for ever from
the only Paradise of which he had any knowledge.
Not unchallenged, however, was the innovation. A few days after the
dismissal of the weekly visitor, the following letter was received by the
Secretary of the Club. It was duly affixed to the notice-board above the
mantel-piece, where for some time it afforded the greatest amusement to
the members, and was provocative of many _facetiæ_ on the part of the
chartered wags. But there were some of the older ornaments of the Otway,
I think, who regarded the document with some misgiving, and counted it as
an ill omen. Here is the text of the Awful Denunciation:—
“TO THE OTWAYS.
“_Pride comes before a fall_.
“Beware! You are haughty now. You will soon be humble. My curse is
upon you. For you have driven me forth into the world—alone. May
your Club be overrun by outsiders. May money rule you instead of
brains. May your skill fail you and your wit wither away. May you
be abandoned by the pewter and the pipe. May your plays be damned,
and your articles rejected. And aping your betters, may you become
the laughing stock of the world. [Signed]
“THE SAWDUST MAN.”
“There is insanity in Sawdust,” said Gadsby, after he had read the
startling anathema.
“More drunk than mad, I expect,” suggested the charitable Tapham.
“Swallowed his own sack, perhaps,” added Ponsonby, in defence of the
latter theory.
But old and judicious Otways shook their heads and sighed. The Sawdust
man had become a part of their artistic career. His removal affected
them. His curse depressed them beyond measure. On the morning after the
receipt of the Curse, the members arriving at the Club found out in the
upper panel of the door the word
ICHABOD.
No one was ever able to ascertain when or how this amateur wood-carving
had been accomplished. It was a mystery. But it led to this result.
Senior members of the Otway entertained some fine old crusted
superstitions, and after this handwriting on the door began to agitate
for a removal to more commodious apartments. And now the curse began to
work. For in order to keep up the more commodious rooms, and to pay for
the increased service, there were necessitated two things. In the first
place, an increased entrance fee and subscription, and in the second
place, a certain healthy relaxing of the first rule of the Club, whereby
all those who were not professionally connected with art, literature, or
the drama, were rigorously excluded.
In two years from the date of the instalment of the Club in its more
commodious chambers, the institution had grown marvellously in
respectability, but it had lost its character, and was now a collection
of individuals of the most various and most nondescript kind. And at the
end of the last of those two years, a gentleman was elected to
membership, who worked with the utmost good-will to efface what little
traces of Bohemian beginnings still clung about the Otway. About this
person or his antecedents little was known. He was immensely wealthy.
He had suddenly acquired his money. And his qualification as a member of
the Club was a work on Papua and New Guinea, which had been eagerly
welcomed by the learned societies, had been solemnly reviewed by the
_Quarterly_, and which was known by several to be the work, not of the
new member at all, but of a Museum hack named Geyser, who for a
consideration in hard cash, permitted Mr. Thistleton—that was the new
member’s name—to figure on the title. Appended to his name were the
letters F.R.G.S., and other formidable distinctions which it may be
presumed, can also be obtained by the common commercial operation known
as exchange and barter.
Shortly after the advent of this great man, questions arose as to the
propriety of drinking beer out of pewter in the Club-rooms. And as Mr.
Thistleton was always ready to stand a bottle of wine to anybody who
cared to call for it, the consumption of beer fell steadily off, and it
became in time, the very worst possible sort of form for an Otway to be
seen imbibing the produce of hops. Clay pipes had long ago been
disestablished by a by-law of the committee. Cigars at ninepence and a
shilling were supplied for the post-prandial smoke. And it was an
understood thing that members should always dine in evening dress. When
this rule came into force, it occasioned the withdrawal of some old
Otways, who, although eminent in their particular walks of literature and
art, hadn’t got a single dress-suit among ’em. The places of these
talented but socially incomplete persons were speedily filled by
gentlemen who, if devoid of genius, were possessed of dress suits of the
very latest design, and had gold and silver and precious stones. And the
flash of a diamond is, I take it, a much more agreeable scintillation
than the flash of the greatest wit in the world.
Mr. Thistleton not only elevated the members of the Otway by means of
champagne of great price; he endeavoured to give them reflected glory by
inviting to the house-dinner personages of repute in Society. A Cabinet
Minister once dined with him. At another time, an Indian Prince, dressed
in the most gorgeous Oriental toggery, sat down to the Otway repast.
Indeed, there seemed to be, practically, no limit to his influence with
the great ones of the earth, and it was apparently his delight to exert
that influence, with a view of introducing his brother members to all
that was esteemed, wealthy, and wise, in London Society.
At last there visited England an Indian Prince, compared to whom the
other Indian princes were mere nobodies. This mighty potentate was in
due course brought down to the Otway, and was graciously pleased to
express his approval of all that he saw and heard. And the Club, in
order to show its appreciation of the compliment of the wise man from the
East, invited him to a banquet. Princes have an awkward habit of making
requests that are commands. And when dinner was over this dusky heathen
had induced the members of the Club to guarantee him a donation of five
thousand pounds, towards his fund for providing tom-toms for the Nautch
girls of Hindustan. Their solemn word was given to their copper-coloured
guest. There was no retreating from their promise. The sequel is soon
told. In order to raise the amount the effects of the Otway were offered
at public auction. All the members attended the sale, and watched their
works of art, their luxurious furniture, their rare wines, and their
ninepenny cigars disappear under the hammer of the auctioneer.
Mr. Thistleton bought in everything. He bid with a persistency and a
viciousness that astonished the man in the rostrum. When the last
article was knocked down to him, he turned upon his late fellow-members,
now dissolved and houseless, and with a demoniac shout of derisive
laughter cried, “I am avenged.” He had grown a beard, and he had become
rich, two wonderful disguises. But there was no doubt about it. It was
the Sawdust Man.
III.
_LORD LUNDY’S SNUFF-BOX_.
“NOT another farthing, Tom. Not another farthing.”
“But my dear father—”
“But me no buts, Tom, as the man says in the playbook. You have an ample
allowance. I never object to a hundred or two in advance to pay your
club subscriptions, or for any other legitimate purpose. But
extravagance like yours means vice, and vice I never _will_ encourage.”
Lord Lundy shook his grey head at his son, heaved a sigh, felt in the
left-hand pocket of his vest, missed something, heaved another sigh, and
became absorbed in the Report with which he had been engrossed when his
son entered the library.
“I only want a paltry two hundred,” pleaded Tom, not by any means willing
to give up without a struggle.
His father once more looked up from his statistics, and without altering
his tone replied,—
“Harkye, Tom. I have said my say. You know the position which I hold as
the patron of religious and philanthropic societies. You are aware of
the repute which I bear. With your proceedings, and those of your
associates, rumour is busy. Such rumours reflect upon me. Common
decency should suggest to you that I am the last person in the world to
whom you should apply for fresh means wherewith to procure fresh
indulgence.”
“Indeed, sir—”
“Enough, Tom. I am busy. Good-morning.”
It was useless to argue further. The Hon. Tom Foote, with downcast
countenance, withdrew; reflected that he must once more have recourse to
his friends, Shadrach, Mesech, and Abednego in Throgmorton Street; and
inwardly apostrophised his stern parent as Old Father Adamant.
When Tom left the library Lord Lundy rang the bell. When the menial
entered his lordship was still feeling in the left-hand pocket of his
vest.
“Oh, James,” he said, “tell my man to look for the snuff-box I usually
carry. Must have dropped it somewhere.”
James bowed and departed on his mission.
Meanwhile Tom, descending into Grosvenor Square, hailed a passing hansom;
but when the driver pulled up by the kerb he was undecided in what
direction to drive.
“Shall I go to the Raleigh and consult Bruiser, or shall I go direct to
old Abednego, or shall I see Dot and explain matters?” This to himself.
Then, suddenly making up his mind to see Dot, he gave his cabman an
address in the vicinity of the Regent’s Park, and abandoned himself to
his fate.
To his great delight, and, indeed, surprise, he found Dot in the very
best of tempers. Her little villa was surrounded by a wall which
protected it from the vulgar stare of the passer-by, and Tom found her in
her breakfast-room arranging flowers and humming an air out of _Diana_, a
burlesque which she was at that time engaged in illustrating at the
Mausoleum Theatre. She was arrayed in a morning-gown of light-blue,
trimmed with some fluffy stuff strangely suggestive of powder-puffs. She
received her guest with considerable warmth; asked her “poor old boy” why
he looked so “glum,” and when in reply he admitted that he had been
unable to obtain the trifling sum which she had requested, burst out
laughing, and said,—
“Don’t look so solemn, Dolly,”—’twas her pet name for him. “I shall be
able to do without it for the present. A wealthy connection of mine has
just died leaving me sufficient for all immediate wants. And now what’s
the news?”
Tom having mentally blessed the rich and opportune relative, and having
regretted aloud that any person should have deprived him of the coveted
opportunity of playing the part of relieving officer, declared that there
was no news.
He then began to look about the room. This is a habit which most men
have in visiting rooms where others, perchance, may be received—others
that they know not of. There is a suspicion of the very furniture. A
jealousy of articles left behind. Great Heavens! what heart-burnings
have been caused by the discovery of a strange cigar-case or a ring with
an unfamiliar monogram.
Tom, strolling up to the mantel-piece while chatting to Dot, or listening
to her artless prattle, perceived, nestling between the ormolu timepiece
and a vase of early primroses, a snuff-box. He took it up and
involuntarily ejaculated,—
“Halloa!”
Dot looked up, and observing the object of his curiosity, exclaimed,—
“Oh, put that down, it—it’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Tom. “It’s a snuff-box. Come, where did you get it?”
Dot pouted. She must not be cross-examined. It was an insult to her.
Did Dolly doubt her?
But Dolly was in perfect temper. He declared himself as devoid of doubt
as a minor prophet, and having calmed the rising emotions of the lady,
said, with the greatest _sang-froid_,—
“Lend me the snuff-box till to-morrow at this hour, and I’ll bring you
the two hundred. Yes, and a fifty into the bargain.”
“Only a loan, mind,” stipulated the girl, who, like most of her charming
sex, had a mind irrevocably fixed on the main chance.
“Of course—only a loan,” replied the elated Tom; “d’ye think I’m going to
turn snuff-taker?”
Whether Tom’s logic or the hope of Tom’s money mollified Miss Dot, it is
certain that when, an hour after, he left Laburnum Villa, Regent’s Park,
N.W., he had the snuff-box in his pocket.
It was from Lady Lundy that his lordship had imbibed his religion and his
philanthropy. She was, indeed, a marvellous woman, and had been known on
at least one occasion to take the chair from which indisposition had
driven her husband. If ever a nobleman could have been said to be
hen-pecked, that devoted aristocrat was Lord Lundy. And Tom, although
more audacious in his expressions of defiance, also stood in considerable
awe of his mother. When on the evening of the day during which all the
events of this unvarnished tale arrived, Tom sat down to dinner, both his
father and his mother were surprised at the flow of his animal spirits,
the redundancy of his anecdotes, and the impudent way in which he
relegated to some future occasion all discussion concerning Outcast
London, or the heathen living in dark places of the earth.
Being a Christian household, certain Christian customs were observed in
the Lundy establishment; so when Lady Lundy left the room her husband and
her son remained to discuss a glass of claret.
“You seem in excellent spirits to-night, my boy,” said the father. And
the remark was not uncalled for; because when last father and son had
met, the latter was extremely downcast.
“Pretty well, thank you,” replied the youth.
“And to what may I attribute this change?”
“I’ve taken your advice, sir, and have commenced to do something useful.
I have gone into trade.”
“God bless my soul! _Trade_!”
“Yes. I’m dealing in articles—if I may call them so—of _virtue_.”
“You’re joking.”
“Never more serious, I assure you. To prove it I will sell you
something.”
“What?”
“A snuff-box.”
The philanthropist laughed.
“And so it is you who have been hiding my favourite box. Hand it over
this minute, you rascal.”
But Tom shook his head.
“No; this can’t be _yours_. This is a snuff-box with a history. It
belonged, my dear father, to a great philanthropist; and it was
discovered in a breakfast-room in the Regent’s Park.”
At this Tom exhibited the pretty receptacle, saying,—
“How much do you say for this highly authenticated heirloom?”
“The two hundred you asked for this morning, Tom,” replied the father,
with more coolness than might reasonably been expected under the
circumstances.
“Not enough,” said the son.
“Three hundred—five hundred!” gasped the philanthropist.
“Say a thousand,” insinuated Tom.
“I’ll be d—d if I do!” replied the philanthropist, with the utmost
decision.
“Then,” said Tom, rising, “I’ll take it to her ladyship, and see what
she’ll give me for it—and for its story.”
“Tom, sit down, I command you. Not a word of this. The money is yours.”
How Tom managed with Dot about retaining the snuff-box history does not
say. But it has been noticed with considerable alarm that Tom has now a
greater influence over Lord Lundy than ever was obtained even by her
ladyship.
IV.
“_ONE WAS RENT AND LEFT TO DIE_.”
AFTER the traveller passes the City of Oxford the Thames greatly changes
its aspect. Locks are deserted by their keepers. One has to open these
waterways for oneself, and there is usually a difficulty in finding the
bolts rust-eaten and honey-combed into a very corrugated species of
small-pox. For traffic has ceased a great way below, and the gentle
dwellers by the banks are a dull and slow race of men given greatly to
the consumption of beer. You may proceed to great distances without
seeing a human being. It is a narrow Thames hereabouts and a shallow.
Yet it is infinitely pleasant in the early spring, when the birds sing
against each other in what to us appear songs of unaffected gladness, but
which are really cries of baffled envy—of angry jealousy. For even the
note of the nightingale is now relegated by the advance of knowledge to a
place among our shattered illusions.
Innocent lambs, sweetly unconscious of the rapidly growing mint, bleat
feebly at the unexpected apparition of a boat containing a human being in
flannels, and the great kine slaking their thirst gaze with meek
contemptuous eyes at the intruder. How cool the rushes show standing by
the water’s edge, unheeding as yet the earlier efforts of a sun
rehearsing for his summer effects. And above all, the deep cerulean with
its white clouds, motionless as those of the painted canvas in the
theatre—seeming more intensely white as the black wings of the rook pass
beneath with lazy sweep.
Twenty miles above Oxford—more than twenty or less than twenty, for I do
not wish the place identified—is the village of —. It is situated about
a mile and a half from the banks of the Thames, and is a place which was
at one time of some consideration, but now is half asleep. It has done
its business and retired. Some wealthy men live in the place and its
vicinity. The labourers look fat on a wage of a shilling or so a day,
and once a year there is a fair, which is greatly deplored by the godly
as calculated to undermine the morals of the simple villagers, whom to my
own knowledge stand in need of no such temptation, being by nature
somewhat prone to forget that part of the moral law which inculcates
advice regarding the regulation of a man’s desires.
The prettiest girl in — was Jessie Bracebridge. She had long golden hair
rigidly suppressed under her garden hat, and soft blue eyes and a figure
lithe but rounded. Her dress was plain to a fault. For she was the only
daughter of William Bracebridge, cobbler and Methodist local preacher, a
pious enthusiast of great original power and extraordinary will; but a
pious enthusiast whose notions of Duty if carried out to their fullest by
mankind generally, would render the world a very uncomfortable place to
live in. In the year 1741 the Rev. John Wesley had visited —, and, as
appears from his “Journal,” being greatly scandalised by the fact that
the Vicar hunted three days a week in the season, and that every second
name inserted in the registry of birth was that of an illegitimate
infant, established a conventicle in the village and set apart a local or
lay preacher to look after his converts until such time as he could send
a regularly ordained minister to supply their spiritual wants. The lay
preacher was named Bracebridge, and the Bracebridge whose name appears in
this unvarnished tale was grandson of the friend of John Wesley.
Bracebridge was indeed in a sort of Apostolical Succession.
In the glorious spring weather of 18–, Jessie Bracebridge had wandered
down to the river and stood among the reeds looking across the great
expanse of meadow beyond the other shore, and wishing that her mother
were alive again, and wondering if people might be really good and
relatively happy without being so strict and stern as her father, or so
instant as he was in season and out of season. Perhaps, too, she was
indulging in day dreams of the great world outside, for she was in her
seventeenth year, and had read of the wonders of cities, and,
notwithstanding her father’s denunciation of the wickedness in them,
longed perhaps to see and judge for herself. Suddenly her thoughts were
diverted. A lamb more silly than its companions—if indeed one lamb can
be more silly than another—had approached too near the edge of the
stream, and the bank giving way under its small weight it fell into the
stream and wakened the echoes with piteous bleating. At that catastrophe
Jessie shrieked aloud, regarding the quadruped’s as a life only less
precious than that of a human being.
A skiff came round the bend of the stream, and its occupant was soon
pulling toward the shrieking maiden. In her distress she pointed to the
drowning lamb, and he, not without difficulty, rescued the woolly
unfortunate, and then returned to receive the thanks which he considered
were his due—for although we are all agreed that virtue is its own
reward, few of us are satisfied with that intangible recompense. He was
a frank-looking, bronzed, and brown-haired English youth, and she blushed
as, with the candid impulse of his nature, he expressed his sorrow for
her distress and his unfeigned delight that he had been in a position to
render a service which had given her pleasure.
It was a short interview but it was a fatal one. She had looked and
loved. He had looked and loved. They met again. And again. And for
the first time in her life she had a secret from the father whom she
feared.
But ah! for her what unthought of bliss in these meetings. How she
listened as her lover, her hero, talked of the world of wealth and
fashion—of the grand mansions of London, of the historic colleges of
Oxford. He sang to her songs of the world, and even taught her, who
heretofore regarded as morally wrong anything in the way of a musical
exercise not contained in the compilation of John and Charles Wesley, to
warble such ditties. Of these it gave him a dreamy pleasure to hear her
sing to him a composition—which commenced or ended—for I forget
which—with the words—
“We threw two leaflets you and I,
To the river as it wandered on,
One was rent and left to die,
The other floated onward all alone.”
An ominous quatrain.
Tom was the name of this sweet-voiced young lover. And Tom was the son
of an eminent judge, who has since exchanged the ermine for a crown of
glory. Tom was at that time a student of Magdalen College, Oxford. And
Jessie, as you know, was the daughter of a Methodist cobbler. Yet they
loved all the spring till he went away to the Continent and forgot all
about that pleasant spooning.
* * * * *
On the following spring Judge —, his revered parent, went the Oxford
Circuit. One day after the Court had risen, he called at his son’s
chambers in Magdalen College. There was an affectionate greeting between
father and son, and the latter, whom as we have seen, was a most
impulsive and kind-hearted young fellow, saw that his father was not
looking well.
“You look ill,” he said, in his sweet musical tones. “The pestilential
atmosphere of those infernal courts.”
“No. I have been engaged in trying a very sad case.”
Tom smiled incredulously.
“The idea of a judge of your experience affected by anything that
transpires in a Court of Justice.”
“And yet so it is.”
“The story must be an exceptionally terrible one.”
“No. It is only exceptionally sad. I will tell it to you briefly. A
young woman was charged with the murder of her infant. The young woman
was unmarried. So far the story is unfortunately an ordinary one. She
refused to make any defence or divulge anything with regard to the
parentage of the child. A plea of not guilty was entered, and I assigned
counsel to defend her. But the facts were too strong. The legal guilt
of the unfortunate, and, I may say, very beautiful victim was clearly
established by the witnesses for the Crown. But one witness appeared for
the defence, and he volunteered his evidence. He was a tall, gaunt man,
with a highly intelligent face. He was dressed in broadcloth. He
entered the box, and said, in slow tones—the tones of a man suffering an
unutterable agony—‘My lord, I wish to speak to the character of my
daughter.’ He had no sooner spoken the words than the prisoner uttered a
shriek, which, to my dying day, I shall remember. She shrieked the word
‘Father,’ and fell to the floor of the dock. There was great confusion
in court for some minutes. A medical man was sent for. When he arrived
he pronounced the prisoner dead. The prosecuting counsel rose and
announced the fact to the court. The father still stood in the
witness-box. His face was ghastly pale, his hands clenched before him,
his eyes were cast towards the roof of the building and looked bright, as
though he could see through that obstacle to something above. Amid a
dead silence, in deep and infinitely pathetic tones he repeated the
words, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name
of the Lord.’ I’m not ashamed to tell you that tears fell on my
note-book from these old eyes of mine.”
“And the man’s name?” asked Tom, casually.
“William Bracebridge, of —.”
For one moment a deadly paleness spread over the face of the son. But in
an instant he regained his self-possession, and with his characteristic,
frank, engaging manner, said,—
“Dear old dad, no wonder the scene upset you. It is, indeed, a sad
story. Try a Laranaga, and let us talk of something else.”
V.
_THE GRIGSBY LIVING_.
GRIGSBY is in Kent, and although, in respect of its hops and
cherry-orchards, it is called upon to pay extraordinary tithes, its
inhabitants seem comfortable and contented. An occasional agitator
happening upon Grigsby endeavours to arouse the farmers as to the
iniquity of the landowners. But these political missionaries receive but
scant welcome, and packing up their carpet-bags depart by early trains.
Much of the neglect bestowed upon the disciples of those who consider
that land should be let at prairie rates may be traced to the fact that
for ten generations the Bodkins have been established in the vicinity.
And the present baronet, Sir Lionel de Stacy Bodkin, is as popular with
his tenants and with the country-side generally, as anyone of his
predecessors. The Bodkins were good landlords and stuck by the farmers.
And the farmers, with a fine bucolic sentiment of reciprocity, stuck by
the Bodkins.
One of the Bodkins always went into the Church, and was presented with
the Grigsby living. Here he ministered to the living Bodkins and
delivered his sage platitudes to the unheeding ears of the Bodkin
effigies that lay in the chancel
“—staring right on
With calm eternal eyes.”
Twenty-five years ago a curious break occurred in this apostolic
succession of Bodkins. Montagu being the baronet’s third son, and being,
into the bargain, “the mildest-mannered man” of whom it is possible to
form any adequate conception, had been destined for the Grigsby living,
and for the emoluments therefrom accruing, including tithes ordinary and
extraordinary.
Montagu had passed just a year at Christ Church, Oxford, when his uncle,
who then had the living, died suddenly. And although Montagu was not a
man of very brilliant parts, he knew that by no process of selection or
patronage understood even by the Church, could his ordination be so
hurried as to permit of his stepping into the shoes of his deceased
uncle, and he further felt that the inhabitants of Grigsby, being
presumably possessed of immortal souls—the said souls standing in weekly
need of saving—the living must be temporarily held by someone outside the
pale of the family.
During the first weeks following the death of the Rev. Reginald de Stacy
Bodkin, M.A., the subject was not broached in the family. But when after
a reasonable time grief had become ameliorated, and nothing so
demonstrative as a paroxysm permissible, the son approached his father
and observed, with his peculiar drawl,—
“The situation is decidedly awkward and complicated—don’t you know.”
“Not at all—not at all,” replied the parent, with decision. “I’ll see
that it’s all right. Go back to Oxford. By the time you’re ordained,
Grigsby living will be ready for you.”
Montagu was still doubtful, and said hesitatingly,—
“Don’t you think that I’d better study for the Bar?”
Notwithstanding the general gloom, the baronet smiled as he answered,—
“My dear boy, when you are ordained I can present you with a living. If
you go to the Bar, I think it quite unlikely that you will be able to
pick one up. No. Leave everything to me and go back to Oxford.”
So he left everything to his father and went back to Oxford.
* * * * *
Five-and-twenty miles from Grigsby is Limpus-on-the-Wold, which is, I
believe, one of the very poorest parishes in all England. It is not only
poor, but it is wide-spread. Its inhabitants are dense, and the work of
its rector somewhat wearing. At the time of this unvarnished tale the
rector of Limpus was Dr. Shotter, one of the most learned and pious
clergymen in the Church. But care, ill-health, anxiety, and the death of
his wife, had told on him. Moreover, he was an old man. He had
completed his seventieth year, and now calmly waited an early call to the
land of shadows, whither his wife had preceded him.
Worn to a mere skeleton, with a small hectic spot burning on his cheek
and a hacking cough racking his frame, he sat at the open casement
inhaling the heavy perfumes of a hot July afternoon. He was tended by
his daughter, a staid woman of forty, who placed her hand on his forehead
when the fit of coughing came, and handed him his draught, or spoke words
of hope and encouragement, when the old man gave it as his opinion that
the end was very near.
Then was heard the rattle of a heavy vehicle on the road, and presently a
drag and four steaming greys drew up before the door of the rectory. A
man of about fifty years of age descended from the box seat, entered the
rectory garden, and in a few moments Dr. Shotter’s daughter was reading
from a card the name of Sir Lionel de Stacy Bodkin, Bart.
The baronet was admitted, and by his fine, genial, hearty manner soon
found his way into the good graces of the rector.
“Badly-drained unhealthy hole this,” he remarked with candour, alluding
not to the house in particular but to Limpus generally.
The Doctor of Divinity nodded assent, and had a terrible fit of coughing.
“You must get out of it, my dear sir. The place is killing you.
Limpus-on-the-Wold wants a young man with an iron constitution. You are
an old man, but with many years of useful work before you.”
Dr. Shotter shook his head and avowed that he had but little interest in
the life that now is, and made touching reference to another and a better
country, an allusion which caused his daughter to weep.
“Tut, tut,” said the baronet; “the beastly vapours of this place have
depressed you. Now, what would you think of Grigsby?”
“A paradise,” sighed the old pastor.
“Then, sir, enter that paradise. It is mine to give. Genius like yours,
sir, should be taken care of in its old age. My dear madam,” he
continued, turning to the daughter, “add your solicitations to mine.
There is no hard work, there is the most charming air in Kent, and there
is a stipend which will permit the purchase of those luxuries to which an
invalid is entitled.”
“It is like a dream, sir; it seems too good to believe,” said the
daughter. Nevertheless, she argued with her father, and urged him till
he was beaten down to a solitary argument, which was that he was too weak
to be moved with safety. The kindly-hearted baronet, however, speedily
dispelled that difficulty. When the time came he would arrange that the
man of God should be removed by easy stages and in the most comfortable
of vehicles.
And that is the manner in which the Rev. Dionysius Shotter, D.D., was
appointed to the Grigsby living five-and-twenty years ago.
* * * * *
When Sir Lionel had praised the air of Grigsby he had not done it more
than justice. Compared with Limpus it was indeed a paradise, and, to the
great delight of his daughter Rachel, Dr. Shotter lost his cough before
he had been two months in the new place. He began absolutely to put on
flesh, found himself capable of walking a mile without inconvenience, and
displayed a vigour in his pulpit discourses which would have roused
feelings of envy, malice, hatred, and all un-charitableness in the breast
of his curate—had that divine been capable of such worldly emotions.
If the prayers of a righteous man avail much, then should Sir Lionel
Bodkin have been one of the most blessed of mortals; for the revivified
minister prayed night and day for his benefactor, and called frequently
at Bodkin Towers to return his personal thanks and to exhibit the
beneficial results of the air of Grigsby on a constitution which he had
regarded as shattered beyond hope of remedy.
“I don’t know how it is, Rachel,” he observed, after one of these visits,
“but it seems to me that Sir Lionel does not seem to exhibit much joy and
thankfulness at my marvellous recovery and daily access of strength.”
“Your fancy, pa dear,” replied his daughter.
“Perhaps so. And yet, when I said to him to-day that, next to Divine
Providence, I owed my thanks to Sir Lionel Bodkin, he replied, rather
testily, I thought, ‘Thank Providence, my dear doctor, and not me.’”
“It is only his brusque manner, dear; under a rough exterior he hides the
kindest heart.”
“It must be so. It must be so,” slowly repeated the aged divine, in a
tone which did not argue absolute conviction.
Meanwhile, Montagu, at Christ Church, was zealously preparing himself for
the holy office to which he would soon be called. And a year after the
installation of the new rector he received a letter which, neither in its
subject-matter nor in its tone, was one which a pious father should have
despatched to a boy about to become a light of the Establishment. The
letter read:—