clergyman. The visitant to the outer world did not move, however. He
looked up and down the hill, as if hesitating in what direction he should
go.
“That,” said the parson, pointing down the hill, “that is the way to
London”—saying which he turned up the avenue, and so re-entered the
precincts of the gaol. But the man did not take the direction indicated
by his benefactor. There was something in the atmosphere of Brixton
which seemed to agree with him. He found its attractions more
considerable than do most visitors to the noted locality. He wandered in
an aimless way up and down by-streets. But the police—always solicitous
about the welfare of discharged prisoners—kept their eyes on him. He had
an uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. And he repeated with
something of bitter irony in his tone the parting admonition of the
chaplain.
“‘Seek work and keep honest!’ No easy matter, Mr. Parson, with these
sleuth-hounds on the trail.”
Towards evening he entered a small beer-house in the Cornwall Road, a
thoroughfare not far removed from the gaol. Here he refreshed himself
with bread and cheese and beer. Here also he found company who did not
object to his society, for it is a comforting reflection that there are
more wicked people outside gaols than in them. And among these excellent
fellows he spent the time, until at the hour of twelve the landlord was
obliged to turn his customers into the bleak and blustrous night.
The man bade good-bye to his companions, and sought the high road. He
proceeded up the hill with his back turned on London. When he came to
the substantial house of the Rev. Stanley Blewton he stopped, looked up
and down the road to see that he was not followed, and then passed into
the clergyman’s front garden, creeping forward under the shadow of the
bushes.
At one o’clock in the morning the reverend occupant of the house was
wakened by a noise below; he listened, warned his wife to keep quiet,
drew on his trousers, took his revolver, and crept downstairs in his
naked feet. Yes, the thief had entered the library. Mr. Blewton was, as
we have seen, a person of some determination. He opened the library door
and said,—
“Speak, or I’ll fire.”
“It is—” But the voice was not allowed to proceed. The sound indicated
the position of the robber. The minister fired two barrels in the
direction of the voice, and heard a body fall with a groan of—
“Oh—father—you—have—killed—me!”
Then there was silence. Then another groan, and the fall of another man.
When the servants came with a light they found the dead body of the
father stretched by the dead body of the son.
IX.
_A PHILANTHROPIC_ “_MASHER_.”
AN elderly man with a pleasant expression, iron-grey hair, and
faultlessly dressed may occasionally be seen walking along the shady side
of St. James’s Street in the early afternoon. He gazes a good deal under
the bonnets of the pretty women. But there is a demure and
half-respectful expression in his glance which withers any rising feeling
of resentment. His age and his unmistakably sympathetic half-smile give
him an immunity which would not be extended to younger and bolder men.
He is known to society as the Hon. Archibald Flodden.
Flodden is a member of three excellent clubs. His name is on some
extremely desirable visiting lists. He goes to church when in town every
Sunday morning. His conduct in public is most exemplary. And yet,
somehow, Flodden has no men friends. He has money, and therefore can
always command the society of a select circle of parasites. But men who
ought to be in his own set—or of whose set he ought to be—do not care for
his company. Nor do the female leaders of society give him great
countenance. He is not, perhaps, regarded exactly as a _mauvais sujet_.
But it is generally admitted that there is something queer about Flodden.
This sentiment was not, of course, inspired originally by the fact that
after two years of domestic infelicity his wife left him, taking her
infant daughter with her. Society naturally took the man’s part. The
wife placed herself outside the pale, and Flodden never asked her to
re-enter it. He took the matter philosophically, gave up his house in
Sloane Square, took chambers in the Albany, refused all communication
with his wife, and led the life of a sedate and philanthropic bachelor.
For eighteen years he has led this blameless and almost idyllic life, and
yet there exists in society an undefined distrust of him which is utterly
unaccountable.
But though the great ladies of society, guided by an infallible instinct,
do not regard the Hon. Archie Flodden with favour, there are certain
other desirable persons who worship him as the very _beau ideal_ knight.
These are ladies of the middle-class, the wives of professional men, or
the gushing ornaments of suburban Bohemia. Their experience of gentlemen
is, perhaps, limited. They may be excused, therefore, in mistaking
Flodden’s tinsel of politeness for the gold of real gallantry.
It is quite surprising the number of interesting young persons of the
emotional and impressionable kind who have acquired a sincere, romantic,
but quite Platonic, regard for Mr. Flodden. Happy chance has in the
majority of instances procured the introduction; and, as a rule, the male
relatives of the ladies are quite unaware of the discreet intimacy
existing between Flodden and their women-folk. Indeed, these male
relatives are all mere brutes, and it is part of Flodden’s edifying
mission to sympathise with these dear creatures, to express distress that
their sweetness should be wasted on such clods of earth, and generally to
insinuate comparisons between himself and the lawful husband, which are
infinitely detrimental to the latter.
This hoary-headed squire of dames has the pleasantest possible little
five o’clock teas at his chambers in the Albany, and sometimes as many as
eight, or even nine, of his young friends will join him at that simple
repast. Lord Roach (“Cock” Roach he used to be called in his regiment),
who lives in the next set, seeing the ladies file out at half-past six or
so, has put it about that Flodden keeps a dancing academy. But, though
there is occasionally a little piano playing, there has never been a
dance; indeed, the entertainment is chiefly conversational. Mr. Flodden
never used a rude or an improper expression. He has, however, a
wonderful knack of leading the conversation into doubtful topics. The
chaste annals of the Divorce Court afforded him much agreeable food for
comment. He would argue with some of his impressionable admirers as to
the possibility of a purely Platonic affection, and at times he would
scribble off an epigram in choice French on some living beauty, notorious
for the number of her amours. These trifles, written in a formal but
trembling hand, have found themselves in the private albums of many an
honest house in the suburbs. The ladies who were the objects of his
disinterested regard invariably alluded to him as “a dear, kind
creature,” the “most gentlemanly person,” “so sympathetic,” and the rest.
The more gushing, recklessly declared him to be a “duck.” Dean Swift,
remembering his own definition of the phrase, would have called him “a
nice man.”
One hot afternoon in the July of last year, Mr. Flodden sat in his
luxurious chambers surrounded by half-a-dozen of his female admirers,
descanting on the superiority of French art as illustrated by the
examples which adorned his walls. Having exhausted this topic, he
proceeded to one more calculated to stimulate the curiosity of his
guests.
“I have got a little surprise for you, my dear ladies: a fresh addition
to our charmed, and may I say charming, circle.”
Six fragile cups descended from twelve ruby lips, and twelve eyes opened
wide with curiosity.
“Such a charming creature—so young, so beautiful, so romantic, and so
unfortunate.” Six long-drawn sighs.
“Husband a cruel brute; absolutely beats her.”
Twelve eyes cast in mute appeal to the heaven that exists above Albany
ceilings. Then the still, small voice of a sympathetic inquirer—
“And where did you meet this—this—paragon?”
“A secret, my dear madam, an absolute and positive secret. She was on
her way to give lessons—she sings divinely—in order to maintain her
keeper in tobacco and beer. Faugh!”
Six more long-drawn sighs.
“If she keep her appointment she will be here directly. She is a shy,
reserved little creature, but should, I think, in such genial society
thaw somewhat. Yes, she really must thaw.”
In five minutes Flodden’s man—a highly-respectable person, well versed in
his master’s little ways—announced Mrs. Bird. This was the lady who had
so greatly fascinated the philanthropist, thereby driving six sympathetic
souls into paroxysms of jealousy.
It must be admitted that anything less reserved or shy than Mrs. Bird had
never before been presented to six neglected matrons. Mrs. Bird was
stylishly dressed, greatly made up, and exhibited the undefinable
_cachet_ of the professional. She called Mr. Flodden “old chappie,”
shook hands, unintroduced, with the assembled tea-drinkers, hoped they
were quite jolly, and then asked the master of the establishment for a
brandy and soda. That worthy man of the world had turned red and white
and even blue. He was completely thunder-struck. It was evident he must
stop the compromising flow of her conversation. The modest woman of his
rambles had suddenly become transformed into a something too terrible for
contemplation. A brilliant idea. He would ask her to sing. Mrs. Bird
was a woman of a most obliging disposition. She sat down at the piano
and dashed off a showy prelude and commenced her song. You remember the
effect of Captain Shandon’s tipsy ditty upon the good Colonel Newcome; an
effect somewhat similar was now produced on the neglected wives. Mrs.
Bird warbled out with unctuous accent one of the most notorious ballads
of a Parisian _café chantant_. The matrons rose for shawls, and the
songstress, apprehending their intention, jumped from the piano and burst
into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Flodden looked humiliated beyond
measure; there was not a pennyweight of philanthropy left in him.
“This is awful!” he exclaimed; “in heaven’s name who and what are you?”
“I am your daughter Gwendolyn,” she hissed.
At that moment voices were heard from without—Flodden’s man shouting,
“You sha’n’t go in,” and another voice consigning Flodden’s man to Hades.
Then the door was thrust open, and a cad in loud check trousers, a
green-coloured Newmarket coat, a white hat and innumerable rings, stood
bowing to the assembled company. He eventually fixed a somewhat
bloodshot eye on the philanthropist and said,—
“Now, then, my festive fossil, when next you go a followin’ other men’s
wives, you see as they ain’t your own daughters! I’m the Great O’Daniel,
the star comique. Gwen’s my wife, an’ you’re my pa-in-lor. Here’s a
horder; give us a turn and bring your lady friends with you. My new
song, ‘The Elderly Masher,’ is no end of a go. Come along, Gwen.
Good-bye, par. Ladies, bong joor!”
So saying he tucked Gwendolyn under his arm, bowed, and left the
apartment. The other guests retired in solemn silence, wiser, and, let
us hope better, women.
And that was Mr. Flodden’s last five o’clock tea at the Albany.
X.
_A DISHONOURED BILL_.
THE bill itself, considering the prospects of the acceptor, was not for a
very alarming amount. He was heir to a baronetcy and £50,000 per annum.
The bill was for “a monkey”—or, in more intelligible phraseology than
that usually adopted by the acceptor himself, for the sum of five hundred
pounds sterling. The extraordinary circumstance about the bill was that
the acceptor, Harry Jermyn, paid Abednego, of Throgmorton Street,
interest at the rate of sixty per cent. per annum for the accommodation,
and that in addition he had to take part of the proceeds in the shape of
a park hack, which he found difficulty in selling to a cab proprietor for
a five-pound note. The consideration deducted from the bill in respect
of this animal was fifty pounds.
Harry Jermyn was a _mauvais sujet_; that is to say, he was a young
gentleman kept by his father on a short allowance. He gambled a little,
went to all the races, was a member of the Raleigh and other social
centres of a similar kind, and evinced a considerable interest in the
drama—that is to say, at theatres where the sacred lamp was kept burning.
In fact, he resembled hundreds of other young men of our acquaintance;
and probably he would not have been called a _mauvais sujet_ were it not
that the old baronet restricted him to means inadequate to supply his
simple desires.
Mr. Abednego was not a _mauvais sujet_. He was a most respectable man;
had a house in Mayfair, another in Richmond, and a mansion in Scotland
which he modestly called his shooting box. He occasionally entertained
live lords, who borrowed his money and sneered at him behind his back.
He had contrived to obtain a seat on a county bench, and was a Colonel of
Volunteers in the same happy county, by reason of which he was known to
society at large as Colonel Abednego.
When Harry Jermyn’s bill fell due he rushed down in a hansom to
Abednego’s office in Throgmorton Street, and was—after an ominous
delay—admitted to the sanctum of the great Abednego himself. That
potentate did not rise, but nodded quickly to his visitor, with a short,
and by no means encouraging, “Mornin’.”
Harry was a man with a fine flow of animal spirits, and was not to be
dashed by the studied coolness of his reception.
“I say, old chappie,” he replied, with the greatest good humour, “what’s
the matter? Feel a little chippy this morning? or lost a point or two at
sixpenny whist last night—eh?”
“Mr. Jermyn, this is the City,” said the money-lender. “What is your
business?”
“Well, the fact is, old boy,” answered Jermyn, sitting on the edge of the
table opposite the financier, “that damn bill of mine falls due
to-morrow.”
“Well?”
“And of course you’ll renew?”
“Of course I’ll do nothing of the kind,” answered Abednego, rising and
taking out his watch.
Harry’s jaw fell considerably. His former experience of this exemplary
man had not prepared him for this. It had only prepared him for the
incurring of fresh interest and the possession of park hacks anything
_but_ fresh.
“But look here, old man, I _must_ have the coin, don’t you know?”
Young Jermyn considered this sort of argument unanswerable. His host
resumed his seat, and looking the young man in the face, said,—
“Well, I found her expensive myself. I’m not surprised that _you_ do.”
Harry jumped from his seat on the table, and exclaimed, “What in Hades do
you mean?”
“I mean Baby Somerville of the Frivolity.”
“You scoundrel!” shouted the borrower, “she is my wife. I have married
her.”
“You lie,” quietly answered Mr. Abednego.
Of course a blow followed. When Abednego had pulled himself together,
and wiped the blood from his face, he said, in tones now quivering with
rage,—
“You young scoundrel, you shall suffer for this!”
That was the end of the interview. Jermyn withdrew at once, wrathful and
defeated, and next day the bill for “a monkey” was dishonoured.
Now, strange as it may appear, Harry Jermyn had really married Baby
Somerville of the Frivolity, a shapely, vain, and heartless woman,
incapable of an affection, except perhaps for some brute of a chorus man.
There was a period in her career, however, when she was considered _chic_
by a certain number of men about town. Jermyn unfortunately allowed his
passion to take an honourable direction. He wanted to have her all to
himself; and she, knowing him to be heir to a baronetcy, without any
conventional coyness consented to be his wife. But at the time of his
marriage, and until he heard it on the day before his bill was
dishonoured, he had no suspicion that Abednego had been among the
admirers of his wife; and when he taxed her with it, she denied the fact
with such accent of sincerity that he clasped her to his heart and called
her by a hundred endearing names. He was, you see, an indubitable
_mauvais sujet_.
Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn were spending the early days of their married life on
the upper Thames, where, to her credit be it said, the lady affected a
pretty interest in waving corn, and floating lily leaves, and shrilling
larks, and other beauties which, I am told, abound in the neighbourhood
of that incomparable stream; and, on the Sunday following the unpleasant
interview with the magnate of Throgmorton Street, Mr. Jermyn was sculling
his young bride in the skiff which he had purchased for her, and called
after her name.
It was a glorious July day, and the river was crowded with craft of every
description.
The lock at — was open and half full when they reached it. Jermyn took
his skiff gently in, and held on to the side of a launch, the deck of
which was crowded with laughing women and men in gorgeous array. In the
cabin a lunch was laid, and cases of champagne reposed pleasantly in the
stern. Jermyn cursed his indiscretion a moment after, when he discovered
that a number of the sirens on deck were members of the Frivolity chorus.
But the worst was to come. Abednego, flashing with diamonds, exquisitely
raddled as to his cheeks, stood at the tiller, and addressing Mrs.
Jermyn, said, with an air of easy familiarity,—
“Hallo, Baby, how are you gettin’ on, eh?”
That was bad enough, but when Harry turned sharply round on his wife, he
saw her big eyes turned longingly on the resplendent Hebrew, and her
smile cast boldly on his painted countenance. At that moment the devil
entered into Jermyn’s soul as surely as ever it took possession of the
Gadarene swine. His lips turned blue, his face was livid; but he made no
other sign. His was the last boat to leave the lock. He rowed steadily
on, and never spoke to the woman he had loved so well and so unwisely.
Mr. Abednego had enjoyed a real good time on board the launch, and on his
way down stopped at the famous riparian village of —. Here also Jermyn
landed some time after. He sent his wife home by train, and put up at
the same hotel as that occupied by his opulent rival.
No one ever knew how it happened. Close to the village there is a lock,
and by the lock is what is called a hook—a horseshoe of water running
round from a point above it, and, after making a vast circuit, emerging
at a point below. For the most part this hook is shallow, but in places
it is deep as the wells described by Herodotus. At six o’clock on the
following morning, Abednego, who was fond of the water, repaired to a
remote part of the hook. Five minutes after Harry Jermyn also proceeded
to the bathing place. He must, however, have selected a spot out of
sight of the “Colonel,” for that gentleman was unfortunately drowned
without Jermyn’s even having seen him. A certain mark was discovered
round Abednego’s throat, but the coroner very sagely informed the jury
that with that they had nothing to do—it might be a mark of
long-standing. Mr. Jermyn volunteered evidence as to having seen nobody
in the vicinity of the hook. Verdict in accordance with such evidence as
was produced—“Accidental death.”
Six months afterwards the famous case of Jermyn _v._ Jermyn, Smith,
Jones, and Another was heard, which, as the public will recollect,
resulted in a verdict for the husband, who is now a prematurely aged and
curiously reticent man—the inheritor of a baronetcy and fifty thousand
pounds a year.
XI.
_A MAN OF GENIUS_.
FELIX CARTER was always on the look out for unappreciated genius, the
which, when discovered, he would clothe, feed, and house until the time
came—as it invariably did come—when he found out that the gold was
tinsel. He never for one moment suspected that he himself was the happy
possessor of that divine endowment which he so reverenced in others. And
yet his friends all swore that if any man ever were gifted with genius,
Felix Carter was that individual. He was a sort of artistic Admirable
Crichton. He painted exquisite pictures. He had written three novels.
Plays of his had been produced with success. And he played the violin
like a very Paganini. Acquaintances spoke of him as being eccentric.
But every man is accounted eccentric whose talents cover a wide area and
whose heart is abnormally large.
Play writing, novel spinning, and violin practice Felix regarded as
recreations. His real profession was that of an artist. And his big
bachelor establishment in a North Western suburb of London will be
remembered as the scene of some brilliant receptions, at not a few of
which Carter’s latest Man of Genius would put in an appearance, to the
great surprise of guests, who very properly refused to see any merit
whatever in his utterances. Sometimes three or four undesirable
pensioners would be quartered on the establishment. And although
Carter’s friends deplored the circumstance, not one of them dare
remonstrate. He was the victim of perpetual disappointment in his
_protégés_, but would resent any interference with his practical
philanthropy.
One of Carter’s Men of Genius lived with him and on him for a period of
more than six months. It was amusing always to hear his enthusiasm over
this big, blotchy-faced loafer. He bored all his friends by a
description of his first meeting him, of his desire to see him again, and
of the happy coincidence of their second encounter. Carter was greatly
given to prowling about unknown London for the purpose of picking up
“effects.” He knew the opium-smoking quarter. He had been in a thieves’
kitchen, and he knew his way to the most disreputable common
lodging-houses in the metropolis. He occasionally dropped in at the
“White Elephant,” a public-house situated in a slum off Fleet Street,
where every night in the week a discussion took place on the events of
the day. This discussion was carried on in a hall at the back of the
“White Elephant,” and was mainly contributed to by subsidized speakers
whose feats of oratory were intended to encourage the ambitious vestryman
who smoked his pipe there, or the occasional young barrister who dropped
in upon his way to or from the Temple. But the audience generally was
made up of solicitors’ clerks, solicitors who had been struck off the
Rolls, with here and there a fiery disciple of Bradlaugh from the
unsavoury fastnesses of Clerkenwell. It was in this resort that Carter
first saw and admired Joseph Addison, the large and very loathsome person
who eventually shared his home.
“I tell you,” he would say, “Joseph is the most wonderful chap. By Jove,
sir, you should have heard the way he pegged into those Radicals. He
made them squirm. I wish old Gladstone had been there to hear him, upon
my soul I do.”
Unfortunately it happened that late one night Felix encountered his
paragon lying asleep under a bench in St. James’s Park. It is more than
probable that the creature was drunk after a day of successful sponging.
But his admirer only saw a man full of gifts and faculties suffering from
cold and hunger.
“By Gad, old boy,” he said in describing the scene, “I could have cried
to see a man, who could talk Sir William Harcourt’s head off, perishing
for want of a penny roll.”
So Addison was treated as reverently as if he had been his great
namesake, was made free of Carter’s house, was introduced to his studio
friends, and was generally rendered a great deal more comfortable than he
deserved to be. His appearance was sadly against him. His eyes were
shifty and blood-shot; his bushy black whiskers were never submitted to
the torture of the comb; his finger nails were invariably dirty, and his
expression was that of effrontery struggling with awkwardness. His
clothes of seedy black vainly endeavouring to conceal an unwashed shirt
seemed as if they had been persistently slept in, and his eyeglass
depending from a white string completed the picture of a rakish
adventurer.