CHAPTER I.

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LAND AT LAST.

A Novel.

BY

EDMUND YATES,

AUTHOR OF "FORLORN HOPE," "BLACK SHEEP," "RUNNING THE GAUNTLET,"

ETC., ETC.

"Post tenebras lux."

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1868.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

I. IN THE STREETS.

II. THE BRETHREN OF THE BRUSH.

III. BLOTTED OUT.

IV. ON THE DOORSTEP.

V. THE LETTER.

VI. THE FIRST VISIT.

VII. CHEZ POTTS.

VIII. THROWING THE FLY.

IX. SUNSHINE IN THE SHADE.

X. YOUR WILLIAM.

XI. PLAYING THE FISH.

XII. UNDER THE HARROW.

XIII. AT THE PRIVATE VIEW.

XIV. THOSE TWAIN ONE FLESH.

BOOK II.

I. NEW RELATIONS.

II. MARGARET.

III. ANNIE.

IV. ALGY BARFORD'S NEWS.

V. SETTLING DOWN.

VI. AT HOME.

VII. WHAT THEIR FRIENDS THOUGHT.

VIII. MARGARET AND ANNIE.

IX. MR. AMPTHILL'S WILL.

X. LADY BEAUPORT'S PLOT.

XI. CONJECTURES.

XII. GATHERING CLOUDS.

XIII. MR. STOMPFF'S DOUBTS.

XIV. THREATENING.

XV. LADY BEAUFORT'S PLOT COLLAPSES.

BOOK III.

I. THE WHOLE TRUTH.

II. THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL.

III. GONE TO HIS REST.

IV. THE PROTRACTED SEARCH.

V. DISMAY.

VI. A CLUE.

VII. TRACKED.

VIII. IN THE DEEP SHADOW.

IX. CLOSING IN.

X. AFTER THE WRECK.

XI. LAND AT LAST.

LAND AT LAST.

Book the First.

CHAPTER I.

IN THE STREETS.

It was between nine and ten oclock on a January night, and the London

streets were in a state of slush. During the previous night snow had

fallen heavily, and the respectable portion of the community, which,

according to regular custom, had retired to bed at eleven oclock,

had been astonished, on peering out from behind a corner of the

window-curtain when they arose, to find the roads and the neighbouring

housetops covered with a thick white incrustation. The pavements

were already showing dank dabs of footmarks, which even the snow

then falling failed to fill up; and the roadway speedily lost its

winter-garment and became sticky with congealed mud. Then the snow

ceased, and a sickly straggling bit of winter-sunlight, a mere parody

on the real thing, half light and half warmth, came lurking out between

the dun clouds; and under its influence the black-specked covering of

the roofs melted, and the water-pipes ran with cold black liquid filth.

The pavement had given it up long ago, and resumed its normal winter

state of sticky slippery grease--grease which clung to the boots and

roused the wildest rage of foot-passengers by causing them to slip

backward when they wanted to make progress, and which accumulated

in the direst manner on the landing-places and street corners,--the

first bits of refuge after the perils of the crossing,--where it

heaped itself in aggravating lumps and shiny rings under the heels of

foot passengers just arrived, having been shaken and stamped off the

soles of passengers who had just preceded them. So it had continued

all day; but towards the afternoon the air had grown colder, and a

whisper had run round that it froze again. Cutlers who had been gazing

with a melancholy air on the placards "Skates" in their window, and

had determined on removing them, as a bad joke against themselves,

decided on letting them remain. Boys who had been delighted in the

morning at the sight of the snow, and proportionately chopfallen

towards middle-day at the sight of the thaw, had plucked up again and

seen visions of snowballing matches, slides on the gutters, and, most

delicious of all, omnibus-horses both down at once on the slippery

road. Homeward-bound City-clerks, their day's work over, shivered in

the omnibuses, and told each other how they were afraid it had come at

last, and reminded each other of what the newspapers had said about

the flocks of wild-geese and other signs of a hard winter, and moaned

lugubriously about the advanced price of coals and the difficulties of

locomotion certain to be consequent on the frost.

But when the cruel black night had set regularly in, a dim sleek soft

drizzle began to fall, and all hopes or fears of frost were at an end.

Slowly and gently it came down, wrapping the streets as with a damp

pall; stealing quietly in under umbrellas; eating its way through the

thickest broadcloth, matting the hair and hanging in dank, unwholesome

beads on the beards of all unlucky enough to be exposed to it. It

meant mischief, this drizzle, and it carried out its intention.

Omnibus-drivers and cabmen knew it at once from long experience, donned

their heavy tarpaulin-capes, and made up their minds for the worst.

The professional beggars knew it too. The pavement-chalking tramp, who

had selected a tolerably dry spot under the lee of a wall, no sooner

felt its first damp breath than he blew out his paper-lantern, put the

candle into his pocket, stamped out as much of the mackerel and the

ship at sea as he had already stencilled, and made off. The man in

the exemplary shirt-collar and apron, who had planted himself before

the chemist's window to procure an extra death-tinge from the light

reflected from the blue bottle, packed up his linen and decamped,

fearing lest his stock-in-trade--his virtue and his lucifers--might be

injured by damp. The brass bands which had been playing outside the

public-houses shouldered their instruments and went inside; the vendors

of secondhand books covered their openly-displayed stock with strips of

baize and dismissed their watchful boys, conscious that no petty thief

would risk the weather for so small a prey. The hot-potato men blew

fiercer jets of steam out of their tin kitchens, as though calling on

the public to defy dull care and comfort themselves with an antidote to

the general wretchedness; and the policemen stamped solemnly and slowly

round their beats, as men impressed with the full knowledge that, as

there was not the remotest chance of their being relieved from their

miserable fate until the morning, they might as well bear themselves

with as much dignity as possible under the circumstances.

It was bad everywhere; but in no place at the West-end of London was

it so bad as at the Regent Circus. There the great tide of humanity

had been ebbing and flowing all day; there hapless females in shoals

had struggled across the roaring sea of Oxford Street, some conveyed

by the crossing-sweeper, some drifting helplessly under the poles of

omnibuses and the wheels of hansom cabs. There the umbrellas of the

expectant omnibus-seekers jostled each other with extra virulence;

and there the edges of the pavements were thick with dark alluvial

deposits kicked hither and thither by the feet of thousands. All day

there had been a bustle and a roar round this spot; and at ten o'clock

at night it had but little diminished. Omnibus-conductors, like kites

and vultures, clawed and wrangled over the bodies of their victims, who

in a miserable little flock huddled together in a corner, and dashed

out helplessly and without purpose as each lumbering vehicle drew

up. Intermingled with these were several vagabond boys, whose animal

spirits no amount of wet or misery could quell, and who constituted

themselves a kind of vedette or outpost-guard, giving warning of the

approach of the different omnibuses in much pleasantly familiar speech,

"Now, guv'nor, for Bayswater! Hatlas comin' up! Ready now for Nottin'

'Ill!"

At the back of the little crowd, sheltering herself under the lee of

the houses, stood a slight female figure, a mere slight slip of a

girl, dressed only in a clinging gown and a miserable tightly-drawn

shawl. Her worn bonnet was pulled over her face, her arms were

clasped before her, and she stood in a doorway almost motionless. The

policeman tramping leisurely by had at first imagined her to be an

omnibus-passenger waiting for a vehicle; but some twenty minutes after

he had first noticed her, finding her still in the same position,

he took advantage of a pretended trial of the security of various

street-doors to scrutinise her appearance. To the man versed in such

matters the miserable garb told its own tale--its wearer was a pauper;

and a beggar the man in office surmised, although the girl had made no

plaint, had uttered no word, had remained immovable and statue-like,

gazing blankly before her. The policeman had been long enough in the

force to know that the girl's presence in the doorway was an offence

in the eyes of the law; but he was a kindly-hearted Somersetshire man,

and he performed his duty in as pleasant a way as he could, by gently

pulling a corner of the drabbled shawl, and saying, "You musn't stand

here, lass; you must move on, please." The shawl-wearer never looked up

or spoke but shivering slightly, stepped out into the dank mist, and

floated, phantom-like, across the road.

Gliding up the upper part of Regent Street, keeping close to the

houses, and walking with her head bent down and her arms always folded

tightly across her breast, she struck off into a bystreet to the right,

and, crossing Oxford Market, seemed hesitating which way to turn. For

an instant she stopped before the window of an eating-house, where

thick columns of steam were yet playing round the attenuated remains

of joints, or casting a greasy halo round slabs of pudding. As the

girl gazed at these wretched remnants of a wretched feast, she raised

her head, her eyes glistened, her pinched nostrils dilated, and for an

instant her breath came thick and fast; then, drawing her shawl more

tightly round her, and bending her head to avoid as much as possible

the rain, which came thickly scudding on the rising wind, she hurried

on, and only stopped for shelter under the outstretched blind of a

little chandler's shop--a wretched shelter, for the blind was soaked

through, and the rain dripped from it in little pools, and the wind

shook it in its frame, and eddied underneath it with a wet and gusty

whirl; but there was something of comfort to the girl in the warm look

of the gaslit shop, in the smug rotund appearance of the chandler,

in the distant glimmer of the fire on the glazed door of the parlour

at the back. Staring vacantly before him while mechanically patting

a conical lump of lard, not unlike the bald cranium of an elderly

gentleman, the chandler became aware of the girl's face at the window;

and seeing Want legibly inscribed by Nature's never-erring hand on

every feature of that face, and being a humane man, he was groping in

the till for some small coin to bestow in charity, when from the back

room came a sharp shrill voice, "Jim, time to shut up!" and at the

sound of the voice the chandler hastily retreated, and, a small boy

suddenly appearing, pulled up the overhanging blind, and having lost

its shelter, the girl set forth again.

But her course was nearly at an end. To avoid a troop of boys who,

arm-in-arm, came breasting up the street singing the burden of a

negro-song, she turned off again into the main thoroughfare, and had

barely gained the broad shadow of the sharp-steepled church in Langham

Place, when she felt her legs sinking under her, her brain reeling,

her heart throbbing in her breast like a ball of fire. She tottered

and clung to the church-railing for support. In the next instant she

was surrounded by a little crowd, in which she had a vision of painted

faces and glistening silks, a dream of faint words of commiseration

overborne by mocking laughter and ribald oaths, oaths made more fearful

still by being uttered in foreign accents, of bitter jests and broad

hints of drunkenness and shame; finally, of the strident voice of

the policeman telling her again to "move on!" The dead faintness,

consequent on cold and wet and weariness and starvation, passed away

for the time, and she obeyed the mandate. Passively she crept away a

few steps up a deserted bystreet until her tormentors had left her

quite alone; then she sunk down, shivering, on a doorstep, and burying

her face in her tattered shawl, felt that her end was come.

There she remained, the dead damp cold striking through her lower

limbs and chilling them to stone, while her head was one blazing

fire. Gradually her limbs became numbed and lost to all sensation, a

sickening empty pain was round her heart, a dead apathy settling down

over her mind and brain. The tramping of feet was close upon her, the

noise of loud voices, the ringing shouts of loud laughter, were in her

ears; but she never raised her head from the tattered shawl, nor by

speech or motion did she give the smallest sign of life. Men passed her

constantly, all making for one goal, the portico next to that in which

she had sunk down helpless--men with kindly hearts attuned to charity,

who, had they known the state of the wretched wayfarer, would have

exerted themselves bravely in her succour, but whom a London life had

so inured to spectacles of casual misery and vice, that a few only cast

a passing glance on the stricken woman and passed on. They came singly

and in twos and threes; but none spoke to her, none noticed her save by

a glance and a shoulder shrug.

Then, as the icy hands of Cold and Want gradually stealing over her

seemed to settle round the region of her heart, the girl gave one low

faint cry, "God help me! it's come at last--God help me!" and fell back

in a dead swoon.

CHAPTER II.

THE BRETHREN OF THE BRUSH.

The house to which all the jovial fellows who passed the girl on the

doorstep with such carelessness were wending their way was almost

unique in the metropolis. The rumour ran that it had originally

been designed for stables, and indeed there was a certain mews-ish

appearance about its architectural elevation; it had the squat,

squabby, square look of those buildings from whose upper-floors

clothes-lines stretch diagonally across stable-yards; and you were at

first surprised at finding an imposing portico with an imposing bell

in a position where you looked for the folding-doors of a coach-house.

Whether there had been any truth in the report or not, it is certain

that the owner of the property speedily saw his way to more money

than he could have gained by the ignoble pursuit of stabling horses,

and made alterations in his building, which converted it into several

sets of spacious, roomy, and comfortable, if not elegant chambers. The

upper rooms were duly let, and speedily became famous--thus-wise. When

Parmegiano Wilkins made his first great success with his picture of

"Boadicea at Breakfast,"--connoisseurs and art-critics will recollect

the marvellous manner in which the chip in the porridge of the Queen

of the Iceni was rendered,--Mr. Caniche, the great picture-dealer, to

whom Wilkins had mortgaged himself body and soul for three years, felt

it necessary that his next works should be submitted to the private

inspection of the newspaper-writers and the _cognoscenti_ previous

to their going into the Academy Exhibition. On receiving a letter

to this effect from Caniche, Wilkins was at his wits' end. He was

living, for privacy's sake, in a little cottage on the outskirts of

Epping Forest, and having made a success, had naturally alienated all

his friends whose rooms in town would otherwise have been available

for the display of his pictures; he thought--and there the astute

picture-dealer agreed with him--that it would be unwise to send them

to Caniche's shop (it was before such places were called "galleries"),

as tending to make public the connection between them; and Wilkins did

not know what to do. Then Caniche came to his rescue. Little Jimmy

Dabb, who had been Gold-Medallist and Travelling-Student at the Academy

three years beforehand, and who, for sheer sake of bread-winning, had

settled down as one of Caniche's Labourers, had a big studio in the

stable-like edifice near Langham Church. In it he painted those bits

of domestic life,--dying children on beds, weeping mothers, small

table with cut-orange, Bible and physic by bedside, and pitying angel

dimly hovering between mantelpiece and ceiling,--which, originally

in oil, and subsequently in engravings, had such a vast sale, and

brought so much ready money to Caniche's exchequer. The situation was

central; why not utilise it? No sooner thought of than done: a red

cotton-velvet coverlet was spread over Jimmy Dabb's bed in the corner;

a Dutch carpet, red with black flecks, was, at Caniche's expense,

spread over the floor, paint-smeared and burnt with tobacco-ash; two

gorgeous easels, on which were displayed Wilkins's two pictures, "The

Bird in the Hand"--every feather in the bird and the dirt in the

nails of the ploughboy's hand marvellously delineated--and "Crumbs of

Comfort," each crumb separate, and the loaf in the background so real,

that the Dowager-Countess of Rundall, a celebrated household manager,

declared it at once to be a "slack-baked quartern." Invitation-cards,

wonderfully illuminated in Old-English characters, and utterly

illegible, were sent forth to rank, fashion, and talent, who duly

attended. Crowds of gay carriages choked up the little street: Dabb

in his Sunday-clothes did the honours; Caniche, bland, smiling, and

polyglot, flitted here and there, his clerk took down orders for

proof copies, and the fortune of the chambers was made. They were so

original, so artistic, so convenient, they were just the place for a

painter. Smudge, R.A., who painted portraits of the aristocracy, who

wore a velvet-coat, and whose name was seen in the tail-end of the list

of fashionables at evening-parties, took a vacant set at once; and

Clement Walkinshaw of the Foreign Office, who passed such spare time

as his country could afford him in illuminating missals, in preparing

designs for stained glass, and in hanging about art-circles generally,

secured the remainder of the upper-floor, and converted it into a

Wardour-Street Paradise, with hanging velvet _portières_, old oak

cabinets, Venetian-glass, marqueterie tables, Sèvres china, escutcheons

of armour, and Viennese porcelain pipes.

Meanwhile, utterly uncaring for and utterly independent of what went

on upstairs, the denizens of the lower story kept quietly on. Who

were the denizens of the lower story? who but the well-known Titian

Sketching-Club! How many men who, after struggling through Suffolk

Street and the Portland Gallery, have won their way to fame and

fortune, have made their _coup d'essai_ on the walls of the chambers

rented by the Titian Sketching-Club! Outsiders, who professed great

love for art, but who only knew the two or three exhibitions of the

season and only recognised the score of names in each vouchsafed for

by the newspaper-critics, would have been astonished to learn the

amount of canvas covered, pains taken, and skill brought to bear upon

the work of the Members of the Titian. There are guilds, and companies

of Freemasons, and brotherhoods by the score in London; but I know

of none where the grand spirit of Camaraderie is so carried out as

in this. It is the nearest thing to the _Vie de Bohème_ of Paris of

Henri Murger that we can show; there is more liberty of speech and

thought and action, less reticence, more friendship,--when friendship

is understood by purse-sharing, by sick-bedside-watching, by absence of

envy, jealousy, hatred, and all uncharitableness,--more singleness of

purpose, more contempt for shams and impostures and the dismal fetters

of conventionality, than in any other circle of English Society with

which I am acquainted.

It was a grand night with the Titians; no model was carefully posed

on the "throne" that evening; no intelligent class was grouped round

on the rising benches, copying from the "draped" or the "nude;"

none of the wardrobe or properties of the club (and it is rich in

both),--none of the coats of mail or suits of armour, hauberks and

broadswords, buff boots, dinted breastplates, carved ebony crucifixes,

ivory-hafted daggers, Louis-Onze caps, friars' gowns and rosaries, nor

other portions of the stock-in-trade, were on view. The "sending-in"

day for the approaching Exhibition of the British Institution was at

hand; and the discoloured smoky old walls of the Titians, the rickety

easels piled round the room, all available ledges and nooks, were

covered with the works of the members of the club, which they fully

intended to submit for exhibition. A very Babel, in a thick fog of

tobacco-smoke, through which loomed the red face of Flexor the famous

model, like the sun in November, greeted you on your entrance. Flexor

pretended to take the hats, but the visitors seemed to know him too

well, and contented themselves with nodding at him in a friendly

manner, and retaining their property. Then you passed into the rooms,

where you found yourself wedged up amongst a crowd of perhaps the most

extraordinary-looking beings you ever encountered. Little men with big

heads and long beards, big men with bald heads and shaved cheeks, and

enormous moustaches and glowering spectacles; tall thin straggling men,

who seemed all profile, and whose full face you could never catch;

dirty shaggy little men, with heads of hair like red mops, and no

apparent faces underneath, whose eyes flashed through their elf-locks,

and who were explaining their pictures with singular pantomimic power

of their sinewy hands, and notably of their ever-flashing thumbs;

moon-faced solemn didactic men prosing away on their views of art to

dreary discontented listeners; and foppish, smart little fellows,

standing a-tiptoe to get particular lights, shading their eyes with

their hands, and backing against the company generally. Moving here

and there among the guests was the Titians' president, honest old Tom

Wrigley, who had been "at it," as he used to say, for thirty years;

without making any great mark in his profession, but who was cordially

beloved for his kind-heartedness and _bonhomie_, and who had a word and

a joke for all. As he elbowed his way through the room he spoke right

and left.

"Hallo, Tom Rogers!--hallo, Tom! That's an improvement, Tom, my boy!

Got rid of the heavy browns, eh? weren't good, those heavy browns;

specially for a Venetian atmosphere, eh, Tom? Much better, this.--How

are you, Jukes? Old story, Jukes?--hen and chickens, ducks in the pond,

horse looking over the gate? Quite right, Jukes; stick to that, if it

pays. Much better than the death of J. Caesar on a twenty-foot canvas,

which nobody would be fool enough to buy. Stick to the ducks, Jukes,

old fellow.--What's the matter, George? Why so savage, my son?"

"Here's Scumble!" said the young man addressed, in an undertone.

"And what of that, George? Mr. Scumble is a Royal Academician, it

is true; and consequently a mark for your scorn and hatred, George.

But it's not _his_ fault; he never did anything to aspire to such a

dignity. It's your British public, George, which is such an insensate

jackass as to buy Scumble's pictures, and to tell him he's a genius."

"He was on the Hanging-Committee last year, and--"

"Ah, so he was; and your 'Aristides' was kicked out, and so was my

'Hope Deferred,' which was a deuced sight better than your big picture,

Master George; but see how I shall treat him.--How do you do, Mr.

Scumble? You're very welcome here, sir."

Mr. Scumble, R.A., who had a head like a tin-loaf, and a face without

any earthly expression, bowed his acknowledgments and threw as much

warmth into his manner as he possibly could, apparently labouring

under a notion that he was marked out for speedy assassination. "This

is indeed a char-ming collection! Great talent among the ri-sing men,

Mr.--pardon me--President! This now, for instance, a most charming

landscape!"

"Yes, old boy; you may say that," said a square-built man smoking

a clay-pipe, and leaning with his elbows on the easel on which the

picture was placed. "I mean the real thing,--not this; which ain't bad

though, is it? Not that I should say so; 'cause for why; which I did

it!" and here the square-built man removed one of his elbows from the

easel, and dug it into the sacred ribs of Scumble, R.A.

"Bad, sir!" said Scumble, recoiling from the thrust, and still with

the notion of a secret dagger hidden behind the square-built man's

waistcoat; "it's magnificent, superb, Mr.----!"

"Meaning me? Potts!" said the square-built man "Charley Potts, artist,

U.E., or unsuccessful exhibitor at every daub-show in London. That's

the Via Mala, that is. I was there last autumn with Geoffrey Ludlow

and Tom Bleistift. 'Show me a finer view than that,' I said to those

fellows, when it burst upon us. 'If you'd a Scotchman with you,' said

Tom, 'he'd say it wasn't so fine as the approach to Edinburgh.' 'Would

he?'said I. 'If he said anything of that sort, I'd show him that view,

and--and rub his nose in it!'"

Mr. Scumble, R.A., smiled in a sickly manner, bowed feebly, and passed

on. Old Tom Wrigley laughed a great boisterous "Ha, ha!" and went

on his way. Charley Potts remained before his picture, turning his

back on it, and puffing out great volumes of smoke. He seemed to know

everybody in the room, and to be known to and greeted by most of them.

Some slapped him on the back, some poked him in the ribs, others laid

their forefingers alongside their noses and winked; but all called him

"Charley," and all had some pleasant word for him; and to all he had

something to say in return.

"Hallo, Fred Snitterfield!" he called out to a fat man in a suit of

shepherd's-plaid dittoes. "Halloa, Fred! how's your brother Bill?

What's he been doing? Not here to-night, of course?"

"No; he wasn't very well," said the man addressed. "He's got--"

"Yes, yes; I know, Fred!" said Charley Potts. "Wife won't let him!

That's it, isn't it, old boy? He only dined out once in his life

without leave, and then he sent home a telegram to say he was engaged;

and when his wife received the telegram she would not believe it,

because she said it wasn't his handwriting! Poor old Bill! Did he sell

that 'Revenge' to what's-his-name--that Manchester man--Prebble?"

"Lord, no! Haven't you heard? Prebble's smashed up,--all his property

gone to the devil!"

"Ah, then Prebble will find it again some day, no doubt. Look out!

here's Bowie!"

Mr. Bowie was the art-critic of a great daily journal. In early life

he had courted art himself; but lacking executive power, he had mixed

up a few theories and quaint conceits which he had learned with a

great deal of acrid bile, with which he had been gifted by nature, and

wrote the most pungent and malevolent art-notices of the day. A tall,

light-haired, vacant-looking man, like a light-house without any light

in it, peering uncomfortably over his stiff white cravat, and fumbling

nervously at his watch-chain. Clinging close to him, and pointing out

to him various pictures as they passed them by, was quite another style

of man,--Caniche, the great picture dealer,--an under-sized lively

Gascon, black-bearded from his chin, round which it was closely cut, to

his beady black eyes, faultlessly dressed, sparkling in speech, affable

in manner, at home with all.

"Ah, ah!" said he, stopping before the easel, "the Via Mala! Not

bad--not at all bad!" he continued, with scarcely a trace of a foreign

accent. "Yours, Charley Potts? yours, _mon brave?_ De-caidedly an

improvement, Charley! You go on that way, mai boy, and some day--"

"Some day you'll give me twenty pound, and sell me for a hundred! won't

you, Caniche?--generous buffalo!" growled Charley, over his pipe.

The men round laughed, but Caniche was not a bit offended. "Of course,"

he said, simply, "I will, indeed; that is my trade! And if you could

find a man who would give you thirty, you would throw me over in what

you call a brace of shakes! _N'est-ce pas?_ Meanwhile, find the man to

give you thirty. He is not here; I mean coming now.--How do you do,

Herr Stompff?"

Mr. Caniche (popularly known as Cannish among the artists) winced as he

said this, for Herr Stompff was his great rival and bitterest enemy.

A short, bald-headed, gray-bearded man was Mr. Stompff,--a

Hamburger,--who, on his first arrival in England, had been an importer

of piping bullfinches at Hull; then a tobacconist in St Mary Axe; and

who finally had taken up picture-selling, and did an enormous business.

No one could tell that he was not an Englishman from his talk, and an

Englishman with a marvellous fluency in the vernacular. He had every

slang saying as soon as it was out, and by this used to triumph over

his rival Caniche, who never could follow his phraseology.

"Hallo, Caniche!" he said; "how are you? What's up?--running the rig

on the boys here! telling Charley Potts his daubs are first-rate?

Pickles!--We know all that game, don't we, Charley? What do you want

for it, Charley?--How are you, Mr. Bowie? what's fresh with you,

sir? Too proud to come and have a cut of mutton with me and Mrs. S.

a-Sunday, I suppose? Some good fellows coming, too; Mugger from the

Cracksideum, and Talboys and Sir Paul Potter--leastways I've asked him.

Well, Charley, what's the figure for this lot, eh?"

"I'll trouble you not to 'Charley' me, Mr. Stump, or whatever your

infernal name is!" said Potts, folding his arms and puffing out

his smoke savagely. "I don't want any Havannah cigars, nor silk

handkerchiefs, nor painted canaries, nor anything else in your line,

sir; and I want your confounded patronage least of all!"

"Good boy, Charley! very good boy!" said Stompff, calmly pulling his

whisker through his teeth--"shouldn't lose his temper, though. Come and

dine a-Sunday, Charley." Mr. Potts said something, which the historian

is not bound to repeat, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Mr. Stompff was not a bit disconcerted at this treatment. He merely

stuck his tongue in his cheek, and looking at the men standing round,

said, "He's on the high ropes, is Master Charley! Some of you fellows

have been lending him half-a-crown, or that fool Caniche has bought one

of his pictures for seven-and-six! Now, has anybody anything new to

show, eh?" Of course everybody had something new to show to the great

Stompff, the enterprising Stompff, the liberal Stompff, whose cheques

were as good as notes of the Bank of England. How they watched his

progress, and how their hearts beat as he loitered before their works!

Jupp, who had a bed-ridden wife, a dear pretty little woman recovering

from rheumatic fever at, Adalbert Villa, Elgiva Road, St. John's

Wood; Smethurst, who had a 25_l_. bill coming due in a fortnight,

and had three-and-sevenpence wherewith to: Vogelstadt, who had been

beguiled into leaving Dusseldorf for London on the rumours of English

riches and English patronage, and whose capital studies of birds

in the snow, and _treibe-jagd's_, and boar-hunts, had called forth

universal laudation, but had not as yet entrapped a single purchaser,

so that Vogelstadt, who had come down not discontentedly to living on

bread-and-milk, had notions of mortgaging his ancestral thumb-ring

to procure even those trifling necessaries,--how they al glared with

expectation as the ex-singing-bird-importer passed their pictures in

review! That worthy took matters very easily, strolling along with

his hands in his pockets, glancing at the easels and along the walls,

occasionally nodding his head in approval, or shrugging his shoulders

in depreciation, but never saying a word until he stopped opposite a

well-placed figure-subject to which he devoted a two-minutes' close

scrutiny, and then uttered this frank though _argot_-tinged criticism

"That'll hit 'em up! that'll open their eyelids, by Jove! Whose is it?"

The picture represented a modern ballroom, in a corner of which a man

of middle age, his arms tightly folded across his breast, was intently

watching the movements of a young girl, just starting off in a _valse_

with a handsome dashing young partner. The expressions in the two faces

were admirably defined: in the man's was a deep earnest devotion not

unmingled with passion and with jealousy, his tightly-clenched mouth,

his deep-set earnest eyes, settled in rapt adoration on the girl,

showed the earnestness of his feeling, SO did the rigidly-fixed arms,

and the _pose_ of the figure, which, originally careless, had become

hardened and angular through intensity of feeling. The contrast was

well marked; in the girl's face which was turned toward the man while

her eyes were fixed on him, was a bright saucy triumph, brightening

her eyes, inflating her little nostrils, curving the corners of her

mouth, while her figure was light and airy, just obedient to the first

notes of the _valse_, balancing itself as it were on the arm of her

partner before starting off down the dance. All the accessories were

admirable: the dreary wallflowers ranged round the room, the chaperons

nidnodding together on the rout-seats, paterfamilias despondingly

consulting his watch, the wearied hostess, and the somnolently-inclined

musicians,--all were there, portrayed not merely by a facile hand but

by a man conversant with society. The title of the picture, "Sic vos

non vobis," was written on a bit of paper stuck into the frame, on

the other corner of which was a card bearing the words "Mr. Geoffrey

Ludlow."

"Ah!" said Stompff, who, after carefully scanning the picture close and

then from a distance, had read the card--"at last! Geoffrey Ludlow's

going to fulfil the promise which he's been showing this ten years! A

late birth, but a fine babby now it's born! That's the real thing and

no flies! That's about as near a good thing as I've seen this long

time--that; come, you'll say the same! That's a good picture, Mr.

Wrigley!"

"Ah!" said old Tom, coming up at the moment, "you've made another

lucky hit if you've bought that, Mr. Stompff! Geoff is so confoundedly

undecided, so horribly weak in all things, that he's been all this time

making up his mind whether he really would paint a good picture or not.

But he's decided at last, and he has painted a clipper."

"Ye-es!" said Stompff, whose first enthusiasm had by no means died

away--on the contrary, he thought so well of the picture that he had

within himself determined to purchase it; but his business caution was

coming over him strongly. "Yes! it's a clipper, as you say, Wrigley;

but it's a picture which would take all a fellow knew to work it. Throw

that into the market--where are you! Pouf! gone I no one thinking of

it. Judicious advertisement, judicious squaring of those confounded

fellows of the press; a little dinner at the Albion or the Star and

Garter to two or three whom we know; and then the wonderful grasp of

modern life, the singular manner in which the great natural feelings

are rendered, the microscopic observation, and the power of detail--"

"Yes, yes," said Tom Wrigley; "for which, see _Catalogue of Stompff's

Gallery of Modern Painters_, price 6_d_. Spare yourself, you unselfish

encourager of talent, and spare Geoff's blushes; for here he is.--Did

you hear what Stompff was saying on, Geoff?"

As he spoke, there came slouching up, shouldering his way through the

crowd, a big, heavily-built man of about forty years of age, standing

over six feet, and striking in appearance if not prepossessing.

Striking in appearance from his height, which was even increased

by his great shock head of dark-brown hair standing upright on his

forehead, but curling in tight crisp waves round the back and poll of

his head; from his great prominent brown eyes, which, firmly set in

their large thickly-carved lids, flashed from under an overhanging

pair of brows; from his large heavy nose, thick and fleshy, yet with

lithe sensitive nostrils; from his short upper and protruding thick

under lip; from the length of his chin and the massive heaviness of

his jaw, though the heavy beard greatly concealed the formation of

the lower portion of his face. A face which at once evoked attention,

which no one passed by without noticing, which people at first called

"odd," and "singular," and "queer," according to their vocabulary;

then, following the same rule, pronounced "ugly," or "hideous," or

"grotesque,"--allowing all the time that there "was something very

curious in it." But a face which, when seen in animation or excitement,

in reflex of the soul within, whose every thought was legibly portrayed

in its every expression, in light or shade, with earnest watchful

eyes, and knit brows and quivering nostrils and working lips; or, on

the other hand, with its mouth full of sound big white teeth gleaming

between its ruddy lips, and its eyes sparkling with pure merriment

or mischief;--then a face to be preferred to all the dolly inanities

of the Household Brigade, or even the matchless toga-draped dummies

in Mr. Truefitt's window. This was Geoffrey Ludlow, whom everybody

liked, but who was esteemed to be so weak and vacillating, so infirm

of purpose, so incapable of succeeding in his art or in his life, as

to have been always regarded as an object of pity rather than envy; as

a man who was his own worst enemy, and of whom nothing could be said.

He had apparently caught some words of the conversation, for when he

arrived at the group a smile lit up his homely features, and his teeth

glistened again in the gaslight.

"What are you fellows joking about?" he asked, while he roared with

laughter, as if with an anticipatory relish of the fun. "Some chaff at

my expense, eh? Something about my not having made up my mind to do

something or not; the usual nonsense, I suppose?"

"Not at all Geoff," said Tom Wrigley. "The question asked by Mr.

Stompff here was--whether you wished to sell this picture, and what you

asked for it."

"Ah!" said Geoffrey Ludlow, his lips closing and the fun dying out

of his eyes. "Well, you see it's of course a compliment for you,

Mr. Stompff, to ask the question; but I've scarcely made up my

mind--whether--and indeed as to the price--"

"Stuff, Geoff! What rubbish you talk!" said Charley Potts, who had

rejoined the group. "You know well enough that you painted the picture

for sale. You know equally well that the price is two hundred guineas.

Are you answered, Mr. Stump?"

Ludlow started forward with a look of annoyance, but Stompff merely

grinned, and said quietly, "I take it at the price, and as many more as

Mr. Ludlow will paint of the same sort; stock, lock, and barrel, I'll

have the whole bilin'. Must change the title though, Ludlow, my boy.

None of your Sic wos non thingummy; none of your Hebrew classics for

the British public. 'The Vow,' or 'the Last Farewell,' or something in

that line.--Very neatly done of you, Charley, my boy; very neat bit

of dealing, I call it. I ought to deduct four-and-nine from the next

fifteen shillin' commission you get; but I'll make it up to you this

way,--you've evidently all the qualities of a salesman; come and be my

clerk, and I'll stand thirty shillings a-week and a commission on the

catalogues."

Charley Potts was too delighted at his friend's success to feel

annoyance at these remarks; he merely shook his fist laughingly, and

was passing on, with his arm through Ludlow's; but the vivacious

dealer, who had rapidly calculated where he could plant his

newly-acquired purchase, and what percentage he could make on it, was

not to be thus balked.

"Look here!" said he; "a bargain's a bargain, ain't it? People say your

word's as good as your bond, and all that. Pickles! You drop down to

my office to-morrow, Ludlow, and there'll be an agreement for you to

sign--all straight and reg'lar, you know. And come and cut your mutton

with me and Mrs. S. at Velasquez Villa, Nottin' 'Ill, on Sunday, at

six. No sayin' no, because I won't hear it. We'll wet our connection in

a glass of Sham. And bring Charley with you, if his dress-coat ain't

up! You know, Charley! Tar, Tar!" And highly delighted with himself,

and with the full conviction that he had rendered himself thoroughly

delightful to his hearers, the great man waddled off his brougham.

Meanwhile the news of the purchase had spread through the rooms,

and men were hurrying up on all sides to congratulate Ludlow on his

success. The fortunate man seemed, however, a little dazed with his

triumph; he shook all the outstretched hands cordially, and said a few

commonplaces of thanks, intermingled with doubts as to whether he had

not been too well treated; but on the first convenient opportunity he

slipped away, and sliding a shilling into the palm of Flexor the model,

who, being by this time very drunk, had arranged his hair in a curl

on his forehead, and was sitting on the bench in the hall after his

famous rendering of George the Fourth of blessed memory, Geoff seized

his hat and coat and let himself out. The fresh night-air revived him

wonderfully, and he was about starting off at his usual headstrong

pace, when he heard a low dismal moan, and looking round, he saw a

female figure cowering in a doorway. The next instant he was kneeling

by her side.

CHAPTER III.

BLOTTED OUT.

THE strange caprices of Fashion were never more strangely illustrated

than by her fixing upon St. Barnabas Square as one of her favourite

localities. There are men yet living among us whose mothers had

been robbed on their way from Ranelagh in crossing the spot, then a

dreary swampy marsh, on which now stands the city of palaces known as

Cubittopolis. For years on years it remained in its dismal condition,

until an enterprising builder, seeing the army of civilisation

advancing with grand strides south-westward, and perceiving at a glance

the immediate realisation of an enormous profit on his outlay, bought

up the entire estate, had it thoroughly cleansed and drained, and

proceeded to erect thereon a series of terraces, places, and squares,

each vying with the other in size, perfection of finish, and, let it be

said, general ghastliness. The houses in St. Barnabas Square resemble

those in Chasuble Crescent, and scarcely differ in any particular

from the eligible residences in Reredos Road: they are all very

tall, and rather thin; they have all enormous porticoes, over which

are little conservatories, railed in with ecclesiastical ironwork;

dismal little back-rooms no bigger than warm-baths, but described as

"libraries" by the house-agents; gaunt drawing-rooms connected by an

arch; vast landings, leading on to other little conservatories, where

"blacks," old flower-pots, and a few geranium stumps, are principally

conserved; and a series of gaunt towny bedrooms. In front they have

Mr. Swiveller's prospect,--a delightful view of over-the-way; across

the bit of square enclosure like a green pocket-handkerchief; while

at the back they look immediately on to the back-premises of other

eligible residences. The enterprising builder has done his best for his

neighbourhood, but he has been unable to neutralise the effects of the

neighbouring Thames; and the consequence is, that during the winter

months a chronic fog drifts up from the pleasant Kentish marshes,

and finding ample room and verge enough, settles permanently down in

the St. Barnabas district; while in the summer, the new roads which

intersect the locality, being mostly composed of a chalky foundation,

peel off under every passing wheel, and emit enormous clouds of dust,

which are generally drifting on the summer wind into the eyes and

mouths of stray passengers, and in at the doors and windows of regular

residents. Yet this is one of Fashion's chosen spots here in this

stronghold of stucco reside scores of those whose names and doings the

courtly journalist delighteth to chronicle; hither do county magnates

bring, to furnished houses, their wives and daughters, leaving them

to entertain those of the proper set during the three summer months,

while they, the county magnates themselves, are sleeping the sleep of

the just on the benches of the House of Commons, or nobly discharging

their duty to their country by smoking cigars on the terrace; here

reside men high up in the great West-end public offices, commissioners

and secretaries, anxious to imbue themselves with the scent of the

rose, and _vivre près d'elle_, City magnates, judges of the land, and

counsel learned in the law. The situation is near to Westminster for

the lawyers and politicians; and the address has quite enough of the

true ring about it to make it much sought after by all those who go-in

for a fashionable neighbourhood.

A few hours before the events described in the preceding chapters

took place, a brougham, perfectly appointed, and drawn by a splendid

horse, came dashing through the fog and driving mist, and pulled up

before one of the largest houses in St. Barnabas Square. The footman

jumped from the box, and was running to the door, when, in obedience

to a sharp voice, he stopped, and the occupant of the vehicle, who had

descended, crossed the pavement with rapid strides, and opened the door

with a pass-key. He strode quickly through the hall, up the staircase,

and into the drawing-room, round which he took a rapid glance. The

room was empty; the gas was lit, and a fire burned brightly on the

hearth; while an open piano, covered with music, on the one side of the

fireplace, and a book turned down with open leaves, showed that the

occupants had but recently left. The newcomer, finding himself alone,

walked to the mantelpiece, and leaning his back against it, passed his

hands rapidly across his forehead; then plunging both of them into his

pockets, seemed lost in thought. The gaslight showed him to be a man

of about sixty years of age, tall, wiry, well-proportioned; his head

was bald, with a fringe of grayish hair, his forehead broad, his eyes

deep-set, his mouth thin-lipped, and ascetic; he wore two little strips

of whisker, but his chin was closely shaved. He was dressed in high

stiff shirt-collars, a blue-silk neckerchief with white dots, in which

gleamed a carbuncle pin; a gray overcoat, under which was a cutaway

riding-coat, high waistcoat with onyx buttons, and tight-fitting

cord-trousers. This was George Brakespere, third Earl Beauport, of whom

and of whose family it behoves one to speak in detail.

They were _novi homines_, the Brakesperes, though they always claimed

to be sprung from ancient Norman blood. Only seventy years ago old

Martin Brakespere was a wool-stapler in Uttoxeter; and though highly

respected for the wealth he was reported to have amassed, was very much

jeered at privately, and with bated breath, for keeping an apocryphal

genealogical tree hanging up in his back-shop, and for invariably

boasting, after his second glass of grog at the Greyhound, about his

lineage. But when, after old Martin had been some score years quietly

resting in Uttoxeter churchyard, his son Sir Richard Brakespere, who

had been successively solicitor and attorney general, was raised to

the peerage, and took his seat on the woolsack as Baron Beauport, Lord

High Chancellor of England, the Herald's College, and all the rest of

the genealogical authorities, said that the line was thoroughly made

out and received the revival of the ancient title with the greatest

laudation. A wiry, fox-headed, thin chip of a lawyer, the first Baron

Beauport, as knowing as a ferret, and not unlike one in the face. He

administered the laws of his country very well, and he lent some of the

money he had inherited from his father to the sovereign of his country

and the first gentleman in Europe at a very high rate of interest, it

is said. Rumour reports that he did not get all his money back again,

taking instead thereof an increase in rank, and dying, at an advanced

age, as Earl Beauport, succeeded in his title and estates by his only

son, Theodore Brakespere, by courtesy Viscount Caterham.

When his father died, Lord Caterham, the second Earl Beauport, was

nearly fifty years old, a prim little gentleman who loved music and

wore a wig; a dried-up chip of a little man, who lived in a little

house in Hans Place with an old servant, a big violoncello, and a

special and peculiar breed of pug-dogs. To walk out with the pug-dogs

in the morning, to be carefully dressed and tittivated and buckled and

curled by the old servant in the afternoon, and either to play the

violoncello in a Beethoven or Mozart selection with some other old

amateur fogies, or to be present at a performance of chamber-music, or

philharmonics, or oratorio-rehearsals in the evening, constituted the

sole pleasure of the second Earl Beauport's life. He never married; and

at his death, some fifteen years after his father's, the title and,

with the exception of a few legacies to musical charities, the estates

passed to his cousin George Brakespere, Fellow of Lincoln College,

Oxon, and then of Little Milman Street, Bedford Row, and the Northern

Circuit, briefless barrister.

Just in the very nick of time came the peerage and the estates to

George Brakespere, for he was surrounded by duns, and over head and

ears in love. With all his hard work at Oxford, and he had worked hard,

he had the reputation of being the best bowler at Bullingdon, and the

hardest rider after hounds; of having the best old port and the finest

cigars (it was before the days of claret and short pipes), and the best

old oak furniture, library of books, and before-letter proofs in the

University. All these could not be paid for out of an undergraduate's

income; and the large remainder of unpaid bills hung round him and

plagued him heavily long after he had left Oxford and been called to

the bar. It was horribly up-hill work getting a connection among the

attorneys; he tried writing for reviews, and succeeded, but earned

very little money. And then, on circuit, at an assize-ball, he fell in

love with Gertrude Carrington, a haughty county beauty, only daughter

of Sir Joshua Carrington, Chairman of Quarter Sessions; and that

nearly finished him. Gertrude Carrington was very haughty and very

wilful; she admired the clever face and the bold bearing of the young

barrister; but in all probability she would have thought no more of

him, had not the eminent Sir Joshua, who kept his eyes very sharply

about him, marked the flirtation, and immediately expressed his total

disapproval of it. That was enough for Gertrude, and she at once went

in for George Brakespere, heart and soul. She made no objection to

a clandestine correspondence, and responded regularly and warmly to

George's passionate letters. She gave him two or three secret meetings

under an old oak in a secluded part of her father's park,--Homershams

was a five-hours' journey from town,--and these assignations always

involved George's sleeping at an inn, and put him to large expense; and

when she came up to stay with her cousins in town, she let him know

all the parties to which they were going, and rendered him a mendicant

for invitations. When the change of fortune came, and George succeeded

to the title, Sir Joshua succumbed at once, and became anxious for

the match. Had George inherited money only, it is probable that from

sheer wilfulness Gertrude would have thrown him over; but the notion of

being a countess, of taking precedence and pas of all the neighbouring

gentry, had its influence, and they were married. Two sons were born

to them,--Viscount Caterham and the Hon. Lionel Brakespere,--and a

daughter, who only survived her birth a few weeks. As Earl Beauport,

George Brakespere retained the energy and activity of mind and body,

the love of exercise and field-sports, the clear brain and singleness

of purpose, which had distinguished him as a commoner: but there was

a skeleton in his house, whose bony fingers touched his heart in his

gayest moments, numbed his energies, and warped his usefulness; whose

dread presence he could not escape from, whose chilling influence nor

wine, nor work, nor medicine, nor gaiety, could palliate. It was ever

present in a tangible shape; he knew his weakness and wickedness in

permitting it to conquer him,--he strove against it, but vainly; and

in the dead watches of the night often he lay broad awake railing

against the fate which had mingled so bitter an ingredient in his cup

of happiness.

The door swung open and the Countess entered, a woman nearly fifty

now, but not looking her age by at least eight years. A tall handsome

woman, with the charms of her former beauty mellowed but not impaired;

the face was more full, but the firm chiselling of the nose and lips,

the brightness of the eyes, the luxurious dark gloss of the hair, were

there still. As she entered, her husband advanced to meet her; and as

he touched her forehead with his lips, she laid her hand on his, and

asked "What news?"

He shook his head sadly, and said, "The worst."

"The worst!" she repeated, faintly; "he's not dead? Beauport, you--you

would not say it in that way--he's not dead?"

"I wish to God he were!" said Lord Beauport through his teeth. "I wish

it had pleased God to take him years and years ago! No! he's not dead."

Then throwing himself into a chair, and staring vacantly at the fire,

he repeated, "I wish to God he were!"

"Anything but that!" said the Countess, with a sense of immense relief;

"anything but that! whatever he has done may be atoned for, and

repented, and--But what has he done? where is he? have you seen Mr.

Farquhar?"

"I have--and I know all. Gertrude, Lionel is a scoundrel and a

criminal--no, don't interrupt me! I myself have prosecuted and

transported men for less crimes than he has committed; years ago he

would have been hanged. He is a forger!"

"A forger!"

"He has forged the names of two of his friends--old brother officers;

Lord Hinchenbrook is one, and young Latham the other--to bills for five

thousand pounds. I've had the bills in my hands, and seen letters from

the men denying their signatures to-night, and--"

"But Lionel--where is he? in prison?"

"No; he saw the crash coming, and fled from it. Farquhar showed me a

blotted letter from him, written from Liverpool, saying in a few lines

that he had disgraced us all, that he was on the point of sailing under

a feigned name for Australia, and that we should never see him again."

"Never see him again! my boy, my own darling boy!" and Lady Beauport

burst into an agony of tears.

"Gertrude," said her husband, when the first wild storm of grief had

subsided, "calm yourself for one instant."

He rang the bell, and to the servant answering it, said:

"Tell Lord Caterham I wish to speak to him, and beg Miss Maurice to be

good enough to step here."

Lady Beauport was about to speak, but the Earl said coldly:

"I wish it, if you please;" and reiterated his commands to the servant,

who left the room. "I have fully decided, Gertrude, on the step I am

about to take. To-morrow those forged bills will be mine. I saw young

Latham at Farquhar's, and he said--" Lord Beauport's voice shook

here--"said everything that was kind and noble; and Hinchenbrook has

said the same to Farquhar. It--it cannot be kept quiet, of course.

Every club is probably ringing with it now; but they will let me have

the bills. And from this moment, Gertrude, that boy's name must never

be uttered, save in our prayers--in our prayers for his forgiveness

and--and repentance--by you, his mother; by me his father,--nor by any

one in this house. He is dead to us for ever!"

"Beauport, for Heaven's sake--"

"I swear it, Gertrude, I swear it! and most solemnly will keep the

oath. I have sent for Caterham, who must know, of course; his good

sense will approve what I have done; and for Annie, she is part of our

household now, and must be told. Dead to us all henceforth; dead to us

all!"

He sank into a chair opposite the fire and buried his face in his

hands, but roused himself at advancing footsteps. The door opened, and

a servant entered, pushing before him a library-chair fitted on large

wheels, in which sat a man of about thirty, of slight spare frame, with

long arms and thin womanly hands--a delicately-handsome man, with a

small head, soft grey eyes, and an almost feminine mouth; a man whom

Nature had intended for an Apollo, whom fortune had marked for her

sport, blighting his childhood with some mysterious disease for which

the doctors could find neither name nor cure, sapping his marrow and

causing his legs to wither into the shrunken and useless members which

now hung loosely before him utterly without strength, almost without

shape, incapable of bearing his weight, and rendering him maimed,

crippled, blasted for life. This was Viscount Caterham, Earl Beauport's

eldest son, and heir to his title and estates. His father cast one

short, rapid glance at him as he entered, and then turned to the person

who immediately followed him.

This was a tall girl of two-and-twenty, of rounded form and winning

expression. Her features were by no means regular; her eyes were brown

and sleepy; she had a pert inquisitive nose; and when she smiled, in

her decidedly large mouth gleamed two rows of strong white teeth. Her

dark-brown hair was simply and precisely arranged; for she had but a

humble opinion of her own charms, and objected to any appearance of

coquetry. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black silk, with linen

collar and cuffs, and her hands and feet were small and perfectly

shaped. Darling Annie Maurice, orphan daughter of a second cousin of

my lord's, transplanted from a suburban curacy to be companion and

humble friend of my lady, the one bright bit of sunshine and reality in

that palace of ghastly stucco and sham. Even now, as she came in, Lord

Beauport seemed to feel the cheering influence of her presence, and his

brow relaxed for an instant as he stepped forward and offered his hand;

after taking which, she, with a bow to the Countess, glided round and

stood by Lord Caterham's chair.

Lord Caterham was the first to speak.

"You sent for us--for Annie and me, sir," he said in a low tremulous

voice; "I trust you have no bad news of Lionel."

Lady Beauport hid her face in her hands; but the Earl, who had resumed

his position against the mantelpiece, spoke firmly.

"I sent for you, Caterham, and for you, Annie, as members of my family,

to tell you that Lionel Brakespere's name must never more be mentioned

in this house. He has disgraced himself, and us through him; and though

we cannot wipe away that disgrace, we must strive as far as possible to

blot him out from our memories and our lives. You know, both of you--at

least you, Caterham, know well enough,--what he has been to me--the

love I had for him--the--yes, my God, the pride I had in him!"

His voice broke here, and he passed his hand across his eyes. In the

momentary pause Annie Maurice glanced up at Lord Caterham, and marked

his face distorted as with pain, and his head reclining on his chest.

Then, gulping down the knot rising in his throat, the Earl continued:

"All that is over now; he has left the country, and the chances are

that we shall never see nor even hear from him again." A moan from

the Countess shook his voice for a second, but he proceeded: "It was

to tell you this that I sent for you. You and I, Caterham, will have

to enter upon this subject once more to-morrow, when some business

arrangements have to be made. On all other occasions, recollect, it is

tabooed. Let his name be blotted out from our memories, and let him be

as if he had never lived."

As Earl Beauport ceased speaking he gathered himself together and

walked towards the door, never trusting himself to look for an instant

towards where his wife sat cowering in grief, lest his firmness should

desert him. Down the stairs he went, until entering his library he shut

the door behind him, locked it, and throwing himself into his chair,

leant his head on the desk, and covering it with his hands gave way

to a passion of sobs which shook his strong frame as though he were

convulsed. Then rising, he went to the book-case, and taking out a

large volume, opened it, and turned to the page immediately succeeding

the cover. It was a big old-fashioned Bible, bound in calf, with a

hideous ancient woodcut as a frontispiece representing the Adoration

of the Wise Men; but the page to which Lord Beauport turned, yellow

with age, was inscribed in various-coloured inks, many dim and faded,

with the names of the old Brakespere family, and the dates of their

births, marriages, and deaths. Old Martin Brakespere's headed the list;

then came his son's, with "created Baron Beauport" in the lawyer's

own skimpy little hand, in which also was entered the name of the

musical-amateur peer, his son; then came George Brakespere's bold entry

of his own name and his wife's, and of the names of their two sons.

Over the last entry Lord Beauport paused for a few minutes, glaring at

it with eyes which did not see it, but which had before them a chubby

child, a bright handsome Eton boy, a dashing guardsman, a "swell"

loved and petted by all, a fugitive skulking in an assumed name in the

cabin of a sea-tossed ship; then he took up a pen and ran it through

the entry backwards and forwards until the name was completely blotted

out; and then he fell again into his train of thought. The family

dinner-hour was long since passed; the table was laid, all was ready,

and the French cook and the grave butler were in despair: but Lord

Beauport still sat alone in his library with old Martin Brakespere's

Bible open before him.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE DOORSTEP.

It is cheap philosophy to moralise on the importance of events led up

to by the merest trifles; but the subject comes so frequently before

us as to furnish innumerable pegs whereon the week-day preacher may

hang up his little garland of reflections, his little wreath of homely

truisms. If Ned Waldron had not been crossing into the Park at the

exact moment when the shortsighted Godalming banker was knocked down

by the hansom at the Corner, he would have still been enjoying eighty

pounds a-year as a temporary extra-clerk at Whitehall, instead of

groaning over the villanous extortion of the malt-tax, as a landed

proprietor of some thousands of inherited acres. If Dr. Weston's

red-lamp over the surgery-door had been blown out when the servant

rushed off for medical advice for Master Percy Buckmaster's ear-ache,

the eminent apothecary would never have had the chance of which he

so skilfully availed himself--of paying dutiful attention to Mrs.

Buckmaster, and finally stepping into the shoes of her late husband,

the wealthy Indian indigo-planter.

If Geoffrey Ludlow, dashing impetuously onward in his career, had not

heard that long low heart-breaking moan, he might have gone on leading

his easy, shiftless, drifting life, with no break greater than the

excitement consequent on the sale of a picture or the accomplishment

of a resolution. But he _did_ hear it, and, rare thing in him, acting

at once on his first impulse, he dropped on his knees just in time to

catch the fainting form in his outstretched arms. That same instant

he would have shrunk back if he could; but it was too late; that same

instant there came across him a horrible feeling of the ludicrousness

of his position: there at midnight in a London thoroughfare holding

in his arms--what! a drunken tramp, perhaps; a vagrant well known to

the Mendicity Society; a gin-sodden streetwalker, who might requite

his good Samaritanism with a leer and a laugh, or an oath and a

blow. And yet the groan seemed to come from the lowest depths of a

wrung and suffering heart; and the appearance--no, there could be no

mistake about that. That thin, almost emaciated, figure; those pinched

features; drawn, haggard, colourless cheeks; that brow, half hidden by

the thick, damp, matted hair, yet in its deep lines and indentations

revealing the bitter workings of the mind; the small thin bony hands

now hanging flaccid and motionless--all these, if there were anything

real in this life, were outward semblances such as mere imposters could

not have brought forward in the way of trade.

Not one of them was lost on Geoffrey Ludlow, who, leaning over the

prostrate figure, narrowly scanned its every feature, bent his face

towards the mouth, placed his hands on the heart, and then, thoroughly

alarmed, looked round and called for aid. Perhaps his excitement had

something to do with it, but Geoff's voice fell flat and limp on the

thick damp air, and there was no response, though he shouted again and

again. But presently the door whence he had issued opened widely, and

in the midst of a gush of tobacco smoke a man came out, humming a song,

twirling a stick, and striding down the street. Again Geoffrey Ludlow

shouted, and this time with success, for the newcomer stopped suddenly,

took his pipe from his mouth, and turning hist-doo head towards the

spot whence the voice proceeded, he called out, simply but earnestly,

"Hallo there! what's the row?"

Ludlow recognised the speaker at once. It was Charley Potts, and

Geoffrey hailed him by name.

"All right!" said Charley in return. "You've picked up my name fast

enough, my pippin; but that don't go far. Better known than trusted is

your obedient servant, C. P. Hallo, Geoff, old man, is it you? Why,

what the deuce have you got there? an 'omeless poor, that won't move

on, or a----- By George, Geoff, this is a bad case!" He had leant over

the girl's prostrate body, and had rapidly felt her pulse and listened

at her heart. "This woman's dying of inanition and prostration. I know

it, for I was in the red-bottle and Plaster-of-Paris-horse line before

I went in for Art. She must be looked to at once, or she'll slip off

the hooks while we're standing by her. You hold on here, old man, while

I run back and fetch the brandy out of Dabb's room; I know where he

keeps it. Chafe her hands, will you, Geoff? I shan't be a second."

Charley Potts rushed off, and left Geoffrey still kneeling by the

girl's side. In obedience to his friend's instructions, he began

mechanically to chafe her thin worn hands; but as he rubbed his own

over them to and fro, to and fro, he peered into her face, and wondered

dreamily what kind of eyes were hidden behind the drooped lids, and

what was the colour of the hair hanging in dank thick masses over the

pallid brow. Even now there began to spring in his mind a feeling of

wonder not unmixed with alarm, as to what would be thought of him,

were he discovered in his then position; whether his motives would be

rightly construed; whether he were not acting somewhat indiscreetly

in so far committing himself: for Geoffrey Ludlow had been brought up

in the strict school of dire respectability, where a lively terror

of rendering yourself liable to Mrs. Grundy's remarks is amongst the

doctrines most religiously inculcated. But a glance at the form before

him gave him fresh assurance; and when Charley Potts returned he found

his friend rubbing away with all his energy.

"Here it is," said Charley; "Dabb's particular. I know it's first-rate,

for Dabb only keeps it medicinally, taking Sir Felix Booth Bart. as his

ordinary tipple. I know this water-of-life-of-cognac of old, sir, and

always have internal qualms of conscience when I go to see Dabb, which

will not be allayed until I have had what Caniche calls a suspicion.

Hold her head for a second, Geoff, while I put the flask to her mouth.

There! Once more, Geoff. Ah! I thought so. Her pulse is moving now, old

fellow, and she'll rouse in a bit; but it was very nearly a case of

Walker."

"Look at her eyes--they're unclosing."

"Not much wonder in that, is there, my boy? though it is odd, perhaps.

A glass of brandy has made many people shut their eyes before now; but

as to opening them--Hallo! steady there!"

He said this as the girl, her eyes glaring straight before her,

attempted to raise herself into an erect position, but after a faint

struggle dropped back, exclaiming feebly:

"I cannot, I cannot."

"Of course you can't, my dear," said Charley Potts, not unkindly; "of

course you can't. You musn't think of attempting it either. I say,

Geoff,"--(this was said in a lower tone)--"look out for the policeman

when he comes round, and give him a hail. Our young friend here must

be looked after at once, and he'd better take her in a cab to the

workhouse."

As he said the last words, Geoffrey Ludlow felt the girl's hand which

he held thrill between his, and, bending down, thought he saw her lips

move.

"What's the matter?" said Charley Potts.

"It's very strange," replied Geoffrey; "I could swear I heard her say

'Not there!' and yet--"

"Likely enough been there before, and knows the treatment. However, we

must get her off at once, or she'll go to grief; so let us--"

"Look here, Charley: I don't like the notion of this woman's going to

a workhouse, specially as she seems to--object, eh? Couldn't we--isn't

there any one where we could--where she could lodge for a night or two,

until--the doctor, you know--one might see? Confound it all, Charley,

you know I never can explain exactly; can't you help me, eh?"

"What a stammering old idiot it is!" said Charley Potts, laughing.

"Yes, I see what you mean--there's Flexor's wife lives close by, in

Little Flotsam Street--keeps a lodging-house. If she's not full, this

young party can go in there. She's all right now so far as stepping

it is concerned, but she'll want a deal of looking after yet. O, by

Jove! I left Rollit in at the Titians, the army-doctor, you know, who

sketches so well. Let's get her into Flexor's, and I'll fetch Rollit to

look at her. Easy now! Up!"

They raised her to her feet, and half-supported, half-carried her round

the church and across the broad road, and down a little bystreet on

the other side. There Charley Potts stopped at a door, and knocking at

it, was soon confronted by a buxom middle-aged woman, who started with

surprise at seeing the group.

"Lor, Mr. Potts! what can have brought you 'ere, sir? Flexor's not come

in, sir, yet--at them nasty Titiums, he is, and joy go with him. If

you're wanting him, sir, you'd better--"

"No, Mrs. Flexor, we don't want your husband just now. Here's Mr.

Ludlow, who--"

"Lord, and so it is! but seeing nothing but the nape of your neck, sir,

I did not recognise--"

"All right, Mrs. Flexor," said Geoffrey; "we want to know if your

house is full. If not, here is a poor woman for whom we--at least Mr.

Potts--and I myself, for the matter of that--"

"Stuttering again, Geoff! What stuff! Here, Mrs. Flexor, we want a room

for this young woman to sleep in; and just help us in with her at once

into your parlour, will you? and let us put her down there while I run

round for the doctor."

It is probable that Mrs. Flexor might have raised objections to this

proposition; but Charley Potts was a favourite with her, and Geoffrey

Ludlow was a certain source of income to her husband; so she stepped

back while the men caught up their burden, who all this time had been

resting, half-fainting, on Geoffrey's shoulder, and carried her into

the parlour. Here they placed her in a big, frayed, ragged easy-chair,

with all its cushion-stuffing gone, and palpable bits of shaggy wool

peering through its arms and back; and after dragging this in front of

the expiring fire, and bidding Mrs. Flexor at once prepare some hot

gruel, Charley Potts rushed away to catch Dr. Rollit.

And now Geoffrey Ludlow, left to himself once more (for the girl was

lying back in the chair, still with unclosing eyes, and had apparently

relapsed into a state of stupor), began to turn the events of the

past hour in his mind, and to wonder very much at the position in

which he found himself. Here he was in a room in a house which he had

never before entered, shut up with a girl of whose name or condition

he was as yet entirely ignorant, of whose very existence he had only

just known; he, who had always shirked anything which afforded the

smallest chance of adventure, was actually taking part in a romance.

And yet--nonsense! here was a starving wanderer, whom he and his friend

had rescued from the street; an ordinary every-day case, familiar in a

thousand phases to the relieving-officers and the poor-law guardians,

who, after her certain allowance of warmth, and food, and physic, would

start off to go--no matter where, and do--no matter what. And yet he

certainly had not been deceived in thinking of her faint protest when

Charley proposed to send her to the workhouse. She had spoken then; and

though the words were so few and the tone so low, there was something

in the latter which suggested education and refinement. Her hands too,

her poor thin hands, were long and well-shaped, with tapering fingers

and filbert-nails, and bore no traces of hard work: and her face--ah,

he should be better able to see her face now.

He turned, and taking the flaring candle from the table, held it above

her head. Her eyes were still closed; but as he moved, they opened

wide, and fixed themselves on him. Such large, deep-violet eyes, with

long sweeping lashes! such a long, solemn, stedfast gaze, in which his

own eyes were caught fast, and remained motionless. Then on to his

hand, leaning on the arm of the chair, came the cold clammy pressure

of feeble fingers; and in his ear, bent and listening, as he saw a

fluttering motion of her lips, murmured very feebly the words, "Bless

you!--saved me!" twice repeated. As her breath fanned his cheek,

Geoffrey Ludlow's heart beat fast and audibly, his hand shook beneath

the light touch of the lithe fingers; but the next instant the eyelids

dropped, the touch relaxed, and a tremulousness seized on the ashy

lips. Geoffrey glanced at her for an instant, and was rushing in alarm

to the door, when it opened, and Charley Potts entered, followed by a

tall grave man, in a long black beard, whom Potts introduced as Dr.

Rollit.

"You're just in time," said Geoffrey; "I was just going to call for

help. She--"

"Pardon me, please," said the doctor, calmly pushing him on one side.

"Permit me to--ah!" he continued, after a glance--"I must trouble you

to leave the room, Potts, please, and take your friend with you. And

just send the woman of the house to me, will you? There is a woman, I

suppose?"

"O yes, there is a woman, of course.--Here, Mrs. Flexor, just step up,

will you?--Now, Geoff, what are you staring at, man? Do you think the

doctor's going to eat the girl? Come on old fellow; we'll sit on the

kitchen-stairs, and catch blackbeetles to pass the time. Come on!"

Geoff roused himself at his friend's touch, and went with him, but in

a dreamy sullen manner. When they got into the passage, he remained

with outstretched ear, listening eagerly; and when Charley spoke, he

savagely bade him hold his tongue. Mr. Potts was so utterly astonished

at this conduct, that he continued staring and motionless, and merely

gave vent to his feelings in one short low whistle. When the door

was opened, Geoffrey Ludlow strode down the passage at once, and

confronting the doctor, asked him what news. Dr. Rollit looked his

questioner steadily in the eyes for a moment; and when he spoke his

tone was softer, his manner less abrupt than before. "There is no

special danger, Mr. Ludlow," said he; "though the girl has had a narrow

escape. She has been fighting with cold and want of proper nourishment

for days, so far as I can tell."

"Did she say so?"

"She said nothing; she has not spoken a word." Dr. Rollit did not fail

to notice that here Geoffrey Ludlow gave a sigh of relief. "I but judge

from her appearance and symptoms. I have told this good person what to

do; and I will look round early in the morning. I live close by. Now,

goodnight."

"You are sure as to the absence of danger?"

"Certain."

"Goodnight; a thousand thanks!--Mrs. Flexor, mind that your patient has

every thing wanted, and that I settle with you.--Now, Charley, come;

what are you waiting for?"

"Eh?" said Charley. "Well, I thought that, after this little

excitement, perhaps a glass out of that black bottle which I know Mrs.

Flexor keeps on the second shelf in the right-hand cupboard--"

"Get along with you, Mr. Potts!" said Mrs. Flexor, grinning.

"You know you do Mrs. F.--a glass of that might cheer and not

inebriate.--What do you say, Geoff?"

"I say no! You've had quite enough; and all Mrs. Flexor's attention is

required elsewhere.--Goodnight, Mrs. Flexor; and"--by this time they

were in the street--"goodnight, Charley."

Mr. Potts, engaged in extracting a short-pipe from the breast-pocket of

his pea-jacket, looked up with an abstracted air, and said, "I beg your

pardon."

"Goodnight, Charley."

"Oh, certainly, if you wish it. Goodnight, Geoffrey Ludlow, Esquire;

and permit me to add, Hey no nonny! Not a very lucid remark, perhaps,

but one which exactly illustrates my state of mind." And Charley Potts

filled his pipe, lit it, and remained leaning against the wall, and

smoking with much deliberation until his friend was out of sight.

Geoffrey Ludlow strode down the street, the pavement ringing

under his firm tread, his head erect, his step elastic, his whole

bearing sensibly different even to himself. As he swung along he

tried to examine himself as to what was the cause of his sudden

light-heartedness; and at first he ascribed it to the sale of his

picture, and to the warm promises of support he had received at

the hands of Mr. Stompff. But these, though a few hours since they

had really afforded him the greatest delight, now paled before the

transient glance of two deep-violet eyes, and the scarcely-heard murmur

of a feeble voice. "'Bless you!--saved me!' that's what she said!"

exclaimed Geoff, halting for a second and reflecting. "And then the

touch of her hand, and the--ah! Charley was right! Hey no nonny is the

only language for such an ass as I'm making of myself." So home through

the quiet streets, and into his studio, thinking he would smoke one

quiet pipe before turning in. There, restlessness, inability to settle

to any thing, mad desire to sketch a certain face with large eyes, a

certain fragile helpless figure, now prostrate, now half-reclining on

a bit of manly shoulder; a carrying-out of this desire with a bit of

crayon on the studio-wall, several attempts, constant failure, and

consequent disgust. A feeling that ought to have been pleasure, and

yet had a strong tinge of pain at his heart, and a constant ringing of

one phrase, "'Bless you!--saved me!" in his ears. So to bed; where he

dreamt he saw his name, Geoffrey Ludlow, in big black letters at the

bottom of a gold frame, the picture in which was Keat's "Lamia;" and

lo! the Lamia had the deep-violet eyes of the wanderer in the streets.

CHAPTER V.

THE LETTER.

The houses in St. Barnabas Square have an advantage over most

other London residences in the possession of a "third room" on the

ground-floor. Most people who, purposing to change their domicile,

have gone in for a study of the _Times_ Supplement or the mendacious

catalogues of house-agents, have read of the "noble dining-room, snug

breakfast-room, and library," and have found the said breakfast-room

to be about the size and depth of a warm-bath, and the "library" a

soul-depressing hole just beyond the glazed top of the kitchen-stairs,

to which are eventually relegated your old boots, the bust of the

friend with whom since he presented it you have had a deadly quarrel,

some odd numbers of magazines, and the framework of a shower-bath

which, in a moment of madness, you bought at a sale and never have been

able to fit together.

But the houses in St. Barnabas Square have each, built over what in

other neighbourhoods is called "leads,"--a ghastly space where the

cats creep stealthily about in the daytime, and whence at night they

yowl with preternatural pertinacity,--a fine large room, devoted in

most instances to the purposes of billiards, but at Lord Beauport's

given up entirely to Lord Caterham. It had been selected originally

from its situation on the ground-floor giving the poor crippled lad

easy means of exit and entrance, and preventing any necessity for his

being carried--for walking was utterly impossible to him--up and down

stairs. It was _his_ room; and there, and there alone, he was absolute

master; there he was allowed to carry out what his mother spoke of

as his "fads," what his father called "poor Caterham's odd ways."

His brother, Lionel Brakespere, had been in the habit of dropping in

there twice or three times a-week, smoking his cigar, turning over

the "rum things" on the table, asking advice which he never took, and

lounging round the room, reading the backs of the books which he did

not understand, and criticising the pictures which he knew nothing

about. It would have been impossible to tell to what manner of man the

room belonged from a cursory survey of its contents. Three-fourths of

the walls were covered with large bookcases filled with a heterogeneous

assemblage of books. Here a row of poets, a big quarto Shakespeare in

six volumes, followed by _Youatt on the Horse, Philip Van Artevelde_,

and Stanhope's _Christian Martyr_. In the next shelf Voltaire, all

the Tennysons, _Mr. Sponge's Sporting-Tour_, a work on Farriery,

and _Blunt on the Pentateuch_. So the _mélange_ ran throughout the

bookshelves; and on the fourth wall, where hung the pictures, it was

not much better. For in the centre were Landseer's "Midsummer-Night's

Dream," where that lovely Titania, unfairy-like if you please, but

one of the most glorious specimens of pictured womanhood, pillows her

fair face under the shadow of that magnificent ass's head; and Frith's

"Coming of Age," and Delaroche's "Execution of Lady Jane Grey," and

three or four splendid proof-engravings of untouchable Sir Joshua;

and among them, dotted here and there, hunting-sketches by Alken, and

coaching bits from Fores. Scattered about on tables were pieces of lava

from Vesuvius, photographs from Pompeii, a collection of weeds and

grasses from the Arctic regions (all duly labelled in the most precise

handwriting), a horse's shoe specially adapted for ice-travelling,

specimens of egg-shell china, a box of gleaming carpenter's tools,

boxes of Tunbridge ware, furs of Indian manufacture, caricature

statuettes by Danton, a case of shells, and another of geological

specimens. Here stood an easel bearing a half-finished picture, in one

corner was a sheaf of walking-sticks, against the wall a rack of whips.

Before the fire was a carved-oak writing-desk, and on it, beside the

ordinary blotting and writing materials, wee an aneroid barometer, a

small skeleton clock, and a silver handbell. And at it sat Viscount

Caterham, his head drooping, his face pale, his hands idly clasped

before him.

Not an unusual position this with him, not unusual by any means when

he was alone. In such society as he forced himself to keep--for with

him it was more than effort to determine occasionally to shake off

his love of solitude, to be present amongst his father's guests, and

to receive some few special favourites in his own rooms--he was more

than pleasant, he was brilliant and amusing. Big, heavy, good-natured

guardsmen, who had contributed nothing to the "go" of the evening,

and had nearly tugged off their tawny beards in the vain endeavour to

extract something to say, would go away, and growl in deep bas voices

over their cigars about "that strordinary fler Caterham. Knows a lot,

you know, that f'ler, 'bout all sorts things. Can't 'ceive where picks

it all up; and as jolly as old boots, by Jove!"

Old friends of Lord Beauport's, now gradually dropping into fogiedom,

and clutching year by 672 year more tightly the conventional prejudices

instilled into them in early life, listened with elevated eyebrows

and dropping jaws to Lord Caterham's outspoken opinions, now clothed

in brilliant tropes, now crackling with smart antithesis, but always

fresh, earnest, liberal, and vigorous; and when they talked him over

in club-windows, these old boys would say that "there was something in

that deformed fellow of Beauport's, but that he was all wrong; his mind

as warped as his body, by George!" And women,--ah, that was the worst

of all,--women would sit and listen to him on such rare occasions as he

spoke before them, sit many of them steadfast-eyed and ear-attentive,

and would give him smiles and encouraging glances, and then would float

away and talk to their next dancing-partner of the strange little man

who had such odd ideas, and spoke so--so unlike most people, you know.

He knew it all, this fragile, colourless, delicate cripple, bound for

life to his wheelchair, dependent for mere motion on the assistance

of others; a something apart and almost without parallel, helpless

as a little child, and yet with the brain, the heart, the passions

of a man. No keener observer of outward show, no clearer reader of

character than he. From out his deep-set melancholy eyes he saw the

stare of astonishment, sometimes the look of disgust, which usually

marked a first introduction to him; his quick ear caught the would-be

compassionate inflection of the voice addressing him on the simplest

matters; he knew what the old fogies were thinking of as they shifted

uneasily in their chairs as he spoke; and he interpreted clearly enough

the straying glances and occasional interjections of the women. He knew

it all, and bore it--bore it as the cross is rarely borne.

Only three times in his life had there gone up from his lips a wail

to the Father of mercies, a passionate outpouring of his heart, a

wild inquiry as to why such affliction had been cast upon him. But

three times, and the first of these was when he was a lad of eighteen.

Lord Beauport had been educated at Charterhouse, where, as every one

knows, Founder's Day is kept with annual rejoicings. To one of these

celebrations Lord Beauport had gone, taking Lord Caterham with him. The

speeches and recitations were over, and the crowd of spectators were

filing out into the quadrangle, when Lord Caterham, whose chair was

being wheeled by a servant close by his father's side, heard a cheery

voice say, "What, Brakespere! Gad, Lord Beauport, I mean! I forgot.

Well, how are you, my dear fellow? I haven't seen you since we sat on

the same form in that old place." Lord Caterham looked up and saw his

father shaking hands with a jolly-looking middle-aged man, who rattled

on--"Well, and you've been in luck and are a great gun! I'm delighted

to hear it. You're just the fellow to bear your honours bravely. O

yes, I'm wonderfully well, thank God. And I've got my boy here at the

old shop, doing just as we used to do, Brakespere--Beauport, I mean.

I'll introduce you. Here, Charley!" calling to him a fine handsome

lad; "this is Lord Beauport, an old schoolfellow of mine. And you,

Beauport,--you've got children, eh?"

"O yes," said Lord Beauport--"two boys."

"Ah! that's right. I wish they'd been here; I should have liked to have

seen them." The man rattled on, but Lord Caterham heard no more. He had

heard enough. He knew that his father was ashamed to acknowledge his

maimed and crippled child--ashamed of a comparison between the stalwart

son of his old schoolfellow and his own blighted lad; and that night

Lord Caterham's pillow was wet with tears, and he prayed to God that

his life might be taken from him.

Twice since then the same feelings had been violently excited; but

the sense of his position, the knowledge that he was a perpetual

grief and affliction to his parents, was ever present, and pervaded

his very being. To tell truth, neither his father nor his mother ever

outwardly manifested their disappointment or their sorrow at the

hopeless physical state of their firstborn son; but Lord Caterham read

his father's trouble in thousands of covert glances thrown towards the

occupant of the wheeled chair, which the elder man thought were all

unmarked, in short self-suppressed sighs, in sudden shiftings of the

conversation when any subject involving a question of physical activity

or muscular force happened to be touched upon, in the persistent way

in which his father excluded him from those regular solemn festivities

of the season, held at certain special times, and at which he by right

should certainly have been present.

No man knew better than Lord Beauport the horrible injustice he was

committing; he felt that he was mutely rebelling against the decrees of

Providence, and adding to the affliction already mysteriously dispensed

to his unfortunate son by his treatment. He fought against it, but

without avail; he could not bow his head and kiss the rod by which he

had been smitten. Had his heir been brainless, dissipated, even bad,

he could have forgiven him. He did in his heart forgive his second son

when he became all three; but that he, George Brakespere, handsome

Brakespere, one of the best athletes of the day, should have to own

that poor misshapen man as his son and heir!--it was too much. He tried

to persuade himself that he loved his son; but he never looked at him

without a shudder, never spoke of him with unflushed cheeks.

As for Lady Beauport, from the time that the child's malady first was

proclaimed incurable, she never took the smallest interest in him, but

devoted herself, as much as devotion was compatible with perpetual

attendance at ball, concert, and theatre, to her second son. As a

child, Lord Caterham had, by her express commands, been studiously kept

out of her sight; and now that he was a man, she saw very much less of

him than of many strangers. A dozen times in the year she would enter

his room and remain a few minutes, asking for his taste in a matter of

fancy-costume, or something of the kind; and then she would brush his

forehead with her lips, and rustle away perfectly satisfied with her

manner of discharging the duties of maternity.

And Lord Caterham knew all this; read it as in a book; and suffered,

and was strong. Who know most of life, discern character most readily,

and read it most deeply? We who what we call "mix in the world," hurry

hither and thither, buffeting our way through friends and foes, taking

the rough and the smooth, smiling here, frowning there, but ever

pushing onward? Or the quiet ones, who lie by in the nooks and lanes,

and look on at the strife, and mark the quality and effect of the blows

struck; who see not merely how, but why the battle has been undertaken;

who can trace the strong and weak points of the attack and defence, see

the skirmishers thrown out here, the feigned retreat there, the mine

ready prepared in the far distance? How many years had that crippled

man looked on at life, standing as it were at the gates and peering

in at the antics and dalliances, the bowings and scrapings, the mad

moppings and idiotic mowings of the puppets performing? And had he not

arrived during this period at a perfect knowledge of how the wires were

pulled, and what was the result?

Among them but not of them, in the midst of the whirl of London but

as isolated as a hermit, with keen analytical powers, and leisure and

opportunity to give them full swing, Lord Caterham passed his life

in studying the lives of other people, in taking off the padding and

the drapery, the paint and the tinsel, in looking behind the grins,

and studying the motives for the sneers. Ah, what a life for a man to

pass! situated as Lord Caterham was, he must under such circumstances

have become either a Quilp or an angel. The natural tendency is to the

former: but Providence had been kind in one instance to Lord Caterham,

and he, like Mr. Disraeli, went in for the angel.

His flow of spirits was generally, to say the least of it, equable.

When the dark hour was on him he suffered dreadfully; but this morning

he was more than usually low, for he had been pondering over his

brother's insane downfall, and it was with something like real pleasure

that he heard his servant announce "Mr. Barford," and gave orders for

that gentleman's admittance.

The Honourable Algernon Barford by prescriptive right, but "Algy

Barford" to any one after two days' acquaintance with him, was one of

those men whom it is impossible not to call by their Christian names;

whom it is impossible not to like as an acquaintance; whom it is

difficult to take into intimate friendship; but with whom no one ever

quarrelled. A big, broad-chested, broad-faced, light-whiskered man,

perfectly dressed, with an easy rolling walk, a pleasant presence, a

way of enarming and "old boy-ing" you, without the least appearance of

undue familiarity; on the contrary, with a sense of real delight in

your society; with a voice which, without being in the least affected,

or in the remotest degree resembling the tone of the stage-nobleman,

had the real swell ring and roll in it; a kindly, sunny, chirpy,

world-citizen, who, with what was supposed to be a very small income,

lived in the best society, never borrowed or owed a sovereign, and

was nearly always in good temper. Algy Barford was the very man to

visit you when you were out of spirits. A glance at him was cheering;

it revived one at once to look at his shiny bald forehead fringed

with thin golden hair, at his saucy blue eyes, his big grinning mouth

furnished with sparkling teeth; and when he spoke, his voice came

ringing out with a cheery music of its own.

"Hallo, Caterham!" said he, coming up to the chair and placing one of

his big hands on the occupant's small shoulder; "how goes it, my boy?

Wanted to see you, and have a chat. How are you, old fellow, eh? Where

does one put one's hat, by the way, dear old boy? Can't put it under my

seat, you know, or I should think I was in church; and there's no place

in this den of yours; and--ah, that'll do, on that lady's head. Who is

it? O, Pallas Athené; ah, very well then, _non invitâ Minervâ_, she'll

support my castor for me. Fancy my recollecting Latin, eh? but I think

I must have seen it on somebody's crest. Well, and now, old boy, how

are you?"

"Well, not very brilliant this morning, Algy. I--"

"Ah, like me, got rats, haven't you?"

"Rats?"

"Yes; whenever I'm out of spirits I think I've got rats--sometimes

boiled rats. Oh, it's all very well for you to laugh, Caterham; but you

know, though I'm generally pretty jolly, sometimes I have a regular

file-gnawing time of it. I think I'll take a peg, dear old boy--a

sherry peg--just to keep me up."

"To be sure. Just ring for Stevens, will you? he'll--"

"Not at all; I recollect where the sherry is and where the glasses

live. _Nourri dans le sérail, j'en connais les detours_. Here they are.

Have a peg, Caterham?"

"No, thanks, Algy; the doctor forbids me that sort of thing. I take no

exercise to carry it off, you know; but I thought some one told me you

had turned teetotaller."

"Gad, how extraordinarily things get wind, don't you know! So I did,

honour!--kept to it all strictly, give you my word, for--ay, for a

fortnight; but then I thought I might as well die a natural death,

so I took to it again. This is the second peg I've had to-day--took

number one at the Foreign Office, with my cousin Jack Lambert. You know

Jack?--little fellow, short and dirty, like a winter's day."

"I know him," said Caterham, smiling; "a sharp fellow."

"O yes, deuced cute little dog--knows every thing. I wanted him to

recommend me a new servant--obliged to send my man away--couldn't stand

him any longer--always worrying me."

"I thought he was a capital servant?"

"Ye-es; knew too much though, and went to too many

evening-parties--never would give me a chance of wearing my own black

bags and dress-boots--kept 'em in constant requisition, by Jove! A

greedy fellow too. I used to let him get just outside the door with

the breakfast-things, and then suddenly call him back; and he never

showed up without his mouth full of kidney, or whatever it was. And

he always would read my letters--before I'd done with them, I mean.

I'm shortsighted, you know, and obliged to get close to the light: he

was in such a hurry to find out what they were about, that he used to

peep in through the window, and read them over my shoulder. I found

this out; and this morning I was ready for him with my fist neatly

doubled-up in a thick towel. I saw his shadow come stealing across the

paper, and then I turned round and let out at him slap through the

glass. It was a gentle hint that I had spotted his game; and so he

came in when he had got his face right, and begged me to suit myself

in a month, as he had heard of a place which he thought he should like

better. Now, can you tell me of any handy fellow, Caterham?"

"Not I; I'm all unlikely to know of such people. Stay, there was a man

that--"

"Yes; and then you stop. Gad, you are like the rest of the world, old

fellow: you have an _arrière pensée_ which prevents your telling a

fellow a good thing."

"No, not that, Algy. I was going to say that there was a man who was

Lionel's servant. I don't know whether he has got another place; but

Lionel, you know--" and Lord Caterham stopped with a knot in his throat

and burning cheeks.

"I know, dear old boy," said Algy Barford, rising from his seat and

again placing his hand on Caterham's shoulder; "of course I know.

You're too much a man of the world"--(Heaven help us! Caterham a man

of the world! But this was Algy Barford's pleasant way of putting

it)--"not to know that the clubs rang with the whole story last night.

Don't shrink, old boy. It's a bad business; but I never heard such

tremendous sympathy expressed for a--for a buffer--as for Lionel. Every

body says he must have been no end cornered before he--before he--well,

there's no use talking of it. But what I wanted to say to you is

this,--and I'm deuced glad you mentioned Lionel's name, old fellow, for

I've been thinking all the time I've been here how I could bring it in.

Look here! he and I were no end chums, you know; I was much older than

he; but we took to each other like any thing, and--and I got a letter

from him from Liverpool with--with an enclosure for you, old boy."

Algy Barford unbuttoned his coat as he said these last words, took a

long breath, and seemed immensely relieved, though he still looked

anxiously towards his friend.

"An enclosure for me?" said Lord Caterham, turning deadly white; "no

further trouble--no further misery for--"

"On my honour, Caterham, I don't know what it is," said Algy Barford;

"he doesn't hint it in his letter to me. He simply says, 'Let the

enclosed be given to Caterham, and given by your own hand.' He

underlines that last sentence; and so I brought it on. I'm a bungling

jackass, or I should have found means to explain it myself, by Jove!

But as you have helped me, so much the better."

"Have you it with you?"

"O yes; brought it on purpose," said Algy, rising and taking his coat

from a chair, and his hat from the head of Pallas Athené; "here it is.

I don't suppose anything from poor Lionel can be very brilliant just

now; but still, I know nothing. Goodby, Caterham, old fellow; can't

help me to a servant-man, eh? See you next week; meantime,--and this

earnest, old boy,--if there's anything I can do to help Lionel in any

shape, you'll let me know, won't you, old fellow?"

And Algy Barford handed Lord Caterham the letter, kissed his hand, and

departed in his usual airy, cheery fashion.

That night Lord Caterham did not appear at the dinner-table; and his

servant, on being asked, said that his master "had been more than usual

queer-like," and had gone to bed very early.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FIRST VISIT.

Geoffrey Ludlow was in his way a recognisant and a grateful man,

grateful for such mercies as he knew he enjoyed; but from never

having experienced its loss, he was not sufficiently appreciative

of one of the greatest of life's blessings, the faculty of sleep at

will. He could have slept, had he so willed it, under the tremendous

cannonading, the _feu-d'enfer_, before Sebastopol, or while Mr.

Gladstone was speaking his best speech, or Mr. Tennyson was reading

aloud his own poetry; whenever and wherever he chose he could sleep

the calm peaceful sleep of an infant. Some people tell you they are

too tired to sleep--that was never the case with Geoffrey; others that

their minds are too full, that they are too excited, that the weather

is too hot or too cold, that there is too much noise, or that the very

silence is too oppressive. But, excited or comatose, hot or cold, in

the rumble of London streets or the dead silence of--well, he had never

tried the Desert, but let us say Walton-on-the-Naze, Geoffrey Ludlow

no sooner laid his head on the pillow than he went off into a sound,

glorious, healthy sleep--steady, calm, and peaceful; not one of your

stertorous, heavy, growling slumbers, nor your starting, fly-catching,

open-mouthed, moaning states, but a placid, regular sleep, so quiet and

undisturbed that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and often as a child

had caused his mother to examine with anxiety whether the motionless

figure stretched upon the little bed was only sleeping naturally, or

whether the last long sleep had not fallen on it.

Dreams he had, no doubt; but they by no means disturbed the refreshing,

invigorating character of his repose. On the night of his adventure

in the streets, he dreamt the Lamia dream without its in the least

affecting his slumber; and when he opened his eyes the next morning,

with the recollection of where he was, and what day it was, and what he

had to do--those post-waking thoughts which come to all of us--there

came upon him an indefinable sensation of something pleasurable and

happy, of something bright and sunshiny, of something which made his

heart feel light within him, and caused him to open his eyes and

grapple with the day at once.

Some one surely must long ere this have remarked how our manner of

waking from slumber is affected by our state of mind. The instant that

consciousness comes upon us, the dominant object of our thoughts,

be it pleasant or horrible, is before us: the absurd quarrel with

the man in the black beard last night, about--what _was_ it about?

the acceptance which Smith holds, which must be met, and can't be

renewed; the proposal in the conservatory to Emily Fairbairn, while

she was flushed with the first _valse_ after supper, and we with Mrs.

Tresillian's champagne;--or, _per contra_, as they say in the City, the

thrilling pressure of Flora Maitland's hand, and the low whisper in

which she gave us rendezvous at the Botanical Fête this afternoon the

lawyer's letter informing us of our godfather's handsome legacy;--all

these, whether for good or ill, come before us with the first unclosing

of our eyelids. If agreeable we rouse ourselves at once, and lie

simultaneously chewing the cud of pleasant thoughts and enjoying the

calm haven of our bed; if objectionable, we try and shut them out yet

for a little while, and turning round court sleep once more.

What was the first thought that flashed across Geoffrey Ludlow's brain

immediately on his waking, and filled him with hope and joy? Not the

remembrance of the purchase of his picture by Mr. Stompff, though

that certainly occurred to him, with Stompff's promises of future

employment, and the kind words of his old friends at the Titians, all

floating simultaneously across his mind. But with these thoughts came

the recollection of a fragile form, and a thin hand with long lithe

fingers wound round his own, and a low feeble voice whispering the

words "Bless you!--saved me!" in his listening ear.

Beneath the flickering gas-lamps, or in the dim half-light of Mrs.

Flexor's room, he had been unable to make out the colour of the eyes,

or of the thick hair which hung in heavy masses over her cheeks; it

was a spiritual recollection of her at the best; but he would soon

change that into a material inspection. So, after settling in his own

mind--that mind which coincides so readily with our wishes--that it was

benevolence which prompted his every action, and which roused in him

the desire to know how the patient of the previous night was getting

on, he sprang from his bed, and pulled the string of his shower-bath

with an energy which not even the knowledge of the water's probable

temperature could mitigate. But he had not proceeded half-way through

his toilet, when the old spirit of irresolution began to exercise its

dominion over him. Was it not somewhat of a Quixotic adventure in which

he was engaging? To succour a starving frozen girl on a wet night was

merely charitable and humane; there was no man of anything like decent

feeling but would have acted as he had done, and--by George!--here the

hair-brushes were suspended in mid-air, just threatening a descent one

on either side of his bushy head--wouldn't it have been better to have

accepted Charley Pott's suggestion, and let the policeman take her to

the workhouse? There she would have had every attention and--bah! every

attention! the truckle-bed in a gaunt bare room, surrounded by disease

in every shape; the perfunctory visits of the parish-doctor; the--O no!

and, moreover, had he not heard, or at all events imagined he heard,

the pallid lips mutter "Not there!" No! there was something in her

which--which--at all events--well, _ruat caelum_, it was done, and he

must take the consequences; and down came the two hair-brushes like two

avalanches, and worried his unresisting scalp like two steam-harrows.

The recollection of the fragile frame, and the thin hands, and the

broken voice, supported by the benevolent theory, had it all their own

way from that time out, until he had finished dressing, and sent him

downstairs in a happy mood, pleased with what he had done, more pleased

still with the notion of what he was about to do. He entered the room

briskly, and striding up to an old lady sitting at the head of the

breakfast-table, gave her a sounding kiss.

"Goodmorning, dearest mother.--How do, Til, dear?" turning to a young

woman who was engaged in pouring out the tea. "I'm late again, I see."

"Always on sausage mornings, I notice, Geoffrey," said Mrs. Ludlow,

with a little asperity. "It does not so much matter with haddock,

though it becomes leathery; or eggs, for you like them hard; but

sausages should be eaten hot, or not at all; and to-day, when

I'd sent specially for these, knowing that nasty herb-stuffing

is indigestible--let them deny it if they can--it does seem hard

that--well, never mind--"

Mrs. Ludlow was a very good old lady, with one great failing: she was

under the notion that she had to bear what she called "a cross," a most

uncomfortable typical object, which caused all her friends the greatest

annoyance, but in which, though outwardly mournful, she secretly

rejoiced, as giving her a peculiar status in her circle. This cross

intruded itself into all the social and domestic details of her life,

and was lugged out metaphorically on all possible occasions.

"Don't mind me, mother," said Geoff; "the sausages will do splendidly.

I overslept myself; I was a little late last night."

"O, at those everlasting Titians.--I declare I forgot," said the young

woman who had been addressed as "Til," and who was Geoffrey's only

sister. "Ah, poor fellow! studying his art till two this morning,

wasn't he?" And Miss Til made a comic sympathetic _moue_, which made

Geoff laugh.

"Two!" said Mrs. Ludlow; "nearer three, Matilda. I ought to know, for I

had water running down my back all night, and my feet as cold as stone;

and I had a perfect recollection of having left the key of the linen

closet in the door, owing to my having been hurried down to luncheon

yesterday when I was giving Martha out the clean pillowcases. However,

if burglars do break into that linen-closet, it won't be for my not

having mentioned it, as I call you to witness, Matilda."

"All right, mother," said Geoffrey; "we'll run the risk of that. I'm

very sorry I disturbed the house, but I _was_ late, I confess; but I

did some good, though."

"O yes, Geoffrey, we know," said Matilda. "Got some new notions for a

subject, or heard some aesthetic criticism; or met some wonderful lion,

who's going to astonish the world, and of whom no one ever hears again!

You always have done something extraordinary when you're out very late,

I find."

"Well, I did something really extraordinary last night. I sold my

picture the 'Ballroom,' you know; and for what do you think?--two

hundred pounds."

"O, Geoff, you dear, darling old Geoff! I am so glad! Two hundred

pounds! O, Geoff, Geoff! You dear, lucky old fellow!" and Miss Till

flung her arms round her brother's neck and hugged him with delight.

Mrs. Ludlow said never a word; but her cross melted away momentarily,

her eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered. Geoffrey noticed

this, and so soon as he had returned his sister's hearty embrace, he

went up to his mother, and kneeling by her side, put up his face for

her kiss.

"God bless you, my son!" said the old lady reverently, as she gave it;

"God bless you! This is brave news, indeed. I knew it would come in

time; but--"

"Yes; but tell us all about it, Geoff. How did it come about? and

however did you pluck up courage, you dear, bashful, nervous old thing,

to ask such a price?"

"I--why, Til, you know that I--and you, dear mother, you know too

that--not that I am bashful, as Til says; but still there's something.

O, I should never have sold the picture, I believe, if I'd been let

alone. It was Charley Potts sold it for me."

"Charles Potts! That ridiculous young man! Well, I should never have

thought it," said Mrs. Ludlow.

Miss Matilda said nothing, but a faint flush rose on her neck and

cheeks, and died away again as quickly as it came.

"O, he's a capital man of business--for anybody else, that's to say.

He don't do much good for himself. He sold the picture for me, and

prevented my saying a word in the whole affair. And who do you think

has bought it? Mr. Stompff, the great dealer, who tells me he'll take

as many more of the same style as I like to paint."

"This is great news, indeed, my boy," said the old lady. "You've only

to persevere, and your fortune's made. Only one thing, Geoffrey,--never

paint on Sunday, or you'll never become a great man."

"Well but, mother," said Geoff, smiling, "Sir Joshua Reynolds painted

always on Sundays until Johnson's death and he was a great man."

"Ah, well, my dear," replied his mother forcibly, if not logically,

"that's nothing to do with it."

Then Geoffrey, who had been hurrying through his sausage, and towards

the last began to grow nervous and fidgety--accounted for by his

mother and sister from his anxiety to go and see Mr. Stompff, and at

once fling himself on to fresh canvases--finished his breakfast, and

went out to get his hat. Mrs. Ludlow, with her "cross" rapidly coming

upon her, sat down to "do the books,"--an inspection of the household

brigade of tradesmen's accounts which she carried on weekly with the

sternest rigour; and Matilda, who was by no means either a romantic

or a strong-minded woman commenced to darn a basketful of Geoffrey's

socks. Then the sock-destroyer put his head in at the door, his mouth

ornamented with a large cigar, and calling out "Goodbye," departed on

his way.

The fragile form, the thin hands, and the soft low voice had it all

their own way with Geoffrey Ludlow now. He was going to see their

owner; in less than an hour he should know the colour of the eyes and

the hair; and figuratively Geoffrey walked upon air; literally, he

strode along with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, swinging his stick,

and, but for the necessity of clenching his cigar between his teeth,

inclined to hum a tune aloud. He scarcely noticed any of the people he

met; but such as he did casually glance at he pitied from the bottom

of his soul: there were no thin hands or soft voices waiting for them.

And it must be owned that the passers-by who noticed him returned his

pity. The clerks on the omnibuses, sucking solemnly at their briar-root

pipes, or immersed in their newspapers, solemn staid men going in "to

business," on their regular daily routine, looked up with wonder on

this buoyant figure, with its black wideawake hat and long floating

beard, its jerky walk, its swinging stick, and its general air of

light-hearted happiness. The cynical clerks, men with large families,

whom nothing but an increase of salary could rouse, interchanged

shoulder-shrugs of contempt, and the omnibus-conductor, likewise a

cynic, after taking a long stare at Geoffrey, called out to his driver,

"'Appy cove that! looks as if he'd found a fourpennypiece, don't he?"

Entirely ignorant of the attention he was attracting, Geoff blithely

pursued his way. He lived at Brompton, and he was bound for the

neighbourhood of Portland Place; so he turned in at the Albert Gate,

and crossing the enclosure and the Row, made for Grosvenor Gate. In the

Park he was equally the object of remark: the nurse-girls called their

charges to come "to heel" out of the way of that "nasty ugly big man;"

the valetudinarians taking their constitutional in the Row loathed

him for swinging his stick and making their horses shy as he passed;

the park-keepers watched him narrowly, as one probably with felonious

intent to the plants or the ducks.

Still, utterly unconscious, Geoffrey went swinging along across

Grosvenor Square, down Brook Street; and not until he turned into Bond

Street did he begin to realise entirely the step he was about to take.

Then he wavered, in mind and in gait; he thought he would turn back:

he did turn back, irresolute, doubtful. Better have nothing more to

do with it; nip it in the bud; send Charley Potts with a couple of

sovereigns to Mrs. Flexor's, and tell her to set the girl on her way

again, and wish her God-speed. But what if she were still ill, unable

to move? people didn't gain sufficient strength in twelve hours; and

Charley, though kind-hearted, was rather _brusque_; and then the low

voice, with the "Bless you!--saved me!" came murmuring in his ear; and

Geoffrey, like Whittington, turned again, and strode on towards Little

Flotsam Street.

When he got near Flexor's door, he faltered again, and very nearly

gave in: but looking up, saw Mrs. Flexor standing on the pavement; and

perceiving by her manner that his advent had been noticed, proceeded,

and was soon alongside that matron.

"Good morning, Mrs. Flexor."

"Good momin', sir; thought you'd be over early, though not lookin'

for you now, but for Reg'las, my youngest plague, so called after Mr.

Scumble's Wictory of the Carthageniums, who has gone for milk for

some posset for our dear; who is much better this momin', the Lord a

mussy! Dr. Rollix have been, and says we may sit up a little, if taking

nourishment prescribed; and pleased to see you we shall be. A pretty

creetur, Mr. Ludlow, though thin as thin and low as low: but what can

we expect?"

"She is better, then?"

"A deal better, more herself like; though not knowing what she was

before, I can't exactly say. Flexor was fine and buffy when he came

home last night, after you was gone, sir. Them nasty Titiums, he always

gets upset there. And now he's gone to sit to Mr. Potts for--ah, well,

some Roman party whose name I never can remember."

"Is your patient up, Mrs. Flexor?"

"Gettin'. We shall be ready to see you in five minutes, sir. I'll go

and see to her at once."

Mrs. Flexor retired, and Geoffrey was left to himself for a quarter of

an hour standing in the street, during which time he amused himself

as most people would under similar circumstances. That is to say, he

stared at the houses opposite and at the people who passed; and then

he beat his stick against his leg, and then he whistled a tune, and

then, having looked at his watch five times, he looked at it for the

sixth. Then he walked up the street, taking care to place his foot on

the round iron of every coal-shoot; and then he walked down the street,

carrying out a determination to step in the exact centre of every

flagstone; and then, after he had pulled his beard a dozen times, and

lifted his wideawake hat as many, that the air might blow upon his hot

forehead, he saw Mrs. Flexor's head protrude from the doorway, and he

felt very much inclined to run away. But he checked himself in time,

and entered the house, and, after a ghostly admonition from Mrs. Flexor

"not to hagitate her," he opened the parlour-door, which Mrs. Flexor

duly shut behind him, and entered the room.

Little light ever groped its way between the closely-packed rows of

houses in Little Flotsam Street, even on the brightest summer day;

and on a dark and dreary winter's morning Mrs. Flexor's little front

parlour was horribly dark. The worthy landlady had some wild notion,

whence derived no one knew, that an immense amount of gentility was

derived from keeping the light out; and consequently the bottom parts

of her windows were fitted with dwarf wire-blinds, and the top parts

with long linen-blinds, and across both were drawn curtains made

of a kind of white fishing-net; so that even so little daylight as

Little Flotsam Street enjoyed was greatly diluted in the Flexorian

establishment.

But Geoffrey Ludlow saw stretched out on a miserable black horsehair

sofa before him there this fragile form which had been haunting his

brain for the last twelve hours. Ah, how thin and fragile it was;

how small it looked, even in, its worn draggled black-merino dress!

As he advanced noiselessly, he saw that the patient slept; her head

was thrown back, her delicate white hands (and almost involuntarily

Geoffrey remarked that she wore no wedding-ring) were clasped across

her breast, and her hair, put off her dead-white face, fell in thick

clusters over her shoulders.

With a professional eye Geoffrey saw at once that whatever trouble she

might have taken, she could not have been more artistically posed than

in this natural attitude. The expression of her eyes was wanting; and,

as he sunk into a chair at her feet, her eyes opened upon him. Then he

saw her face in its entirety; saw large deep-violet eyes, with dark

lashes and eyebrows; a thin, slightly aquiline nose; small thin close

lips, and a little chin; a complexion of the deadest white, without the

smallest colour and hair, long thick rich luxuriant hair, of a deep,

red-god colour--not the poetic "auburn," not the vulgar "carrots;"

a rich metallic red, unmistakable, admitting of no compromise, no

darkening by grease or confining by fixature--a great mass of deep-red

hair, strange, weird, and oddly beautiful. The deep-violet eyes,

opening slowly, fixed their regard on his face without a tremor, and

with a somewhat languid gaze; then brightening slowly, while the hands

were unclasped, and the voice--how well Geoff remembered its tones, and

how they thrilled him again!--murmured faintly, "It is you!"

What is that wonderful something in the human voice which at once

proclaims the social status of the speaker? The proletary and the

_roturier_, Nature willing, can have as good features, grow as flowing

beards, be as good in stature, grace, and agility, as the noblest

patrician, or the man in whose veins flows the purest _sangre azul_;

but they fail generally in hands, always in voice. Geoffrey Ludlow, all

his weakness and irresolution notwithstanding, was necessarily by his

art a student of life and character; and no sooner did he hear those

three little words spoken in that tone, than all his floating ideas

of shamming tramp or hypocritical streetwalker, as connected with the

recipient of his last night's charity, died away, and he recognised at

once the soft modulations of education, if not of birth.

But those three words, spoken in deep low quivering tones, while they

set the blood dancing in Geoffrey Ludlow's veins, made him at the same

time very uncomfortable. He had a dread of anything romantic; and there

flashed through his mind an idea that he could only answer this remark

by exclaiming, "Tis I!" or "Ay, indeed!" or something else equally

absurd and ridiculous. So he contented himself with bowing his head and

putting out his hand--into which the long lithe fingers came fluttering

instantly. Then with burning cheeks Geoffrey bent forward, and said,

"You are better to-day?"

"Oh, so much--so much better! thanks to you, thanks to you!"

"Your doctor has been?" She bowed her head in reply.

"And you have everything you wish for?" She bowed again, this time

glancing up--with, O, such a light in the deep-violet eyes--into

Geoffrey's face!

"Then--then I will leave you now," said he, awkwardly enough. The

glance fell as he said this; but flashed again full and earnest in

an instant; the lithe fingers wound round his wrist, and the voice,

even lower and more tremulously than before, whispered, "You'll come

to-morrow?"

Geoff flushed again, stammered, "Yes, O, by all means!" made a clumsy

bow, and went out.

Now this was a short, and not a particularly satisfactory, interview;

but the smallest detail of it remained in Geoffrey Ludlow's mind, and

was reproduced throughout the remainder of that day and the first

portion of the succeeding night, for him to ponder over. He felt the

clasp of her fingers yet on his wrist, and he heard the soft voice,

"You'll come to-morrow?" It must be a long distance, he thought, that

he would not go to gaze into those eyes, to touch that hand, to hear

that voice again!

CHAPTER VII.

CHEZ POTTS.

Mr. Potts lived in Berners Street, on the second floor of a rambling

big old-fashioned house, which in its palmy days had been inhabited by

people of distinction; and in which it was rumoured in the art-world

that the great Mr. Fuseli had once lived, and painted those horrors

which sprung from the nightmare consequent on heavy suppers of

pork-chops. But these were the days of its decadence, and each of its

floors had now a separate and distinct tenant. The ground-floor was

a kind of half showroom, half shop, held by Mr. Lectern, the great

church-upholsterer. Specimens of stained-glass windows, croziers,

and brass instruments like exaggerated beadles'-staves, gilt sets of

communion-service, and splendidly-worked altar-cloths, occupied the

walls; the visitor walked up to the desk at which Mr. Lectern presided

between groves of elaborately-carved pulpits and reading-desks, and

brazen eagles were extending their wings in every available corner. On

the first-floor Mdlle. Stetti gave lessons to the nobility, gentry,

and the public in general in the fashionable dances of the day, and

in the Magyar sceptre-exercises for opening the chest and improving

the figure. Mdlle. Stetti had a very large connection; and as many

of her pupils were adults who had never learned to dance while they

were supple and tender, and as, under the persevering tuition of

their little instructress, they gambolled in a cumbrous and rather

elephantine manner, they earned for themselves many hearty anathemas

from Mr. Potts, who found it impossible to work with anything like a

steady hand while the whole house was rocking under the influence of a

stout stockbroker doing the "changes," or while the walls trembled at

every bound of the fourteen-stone lady from Islington, who was being

initiated into the mysteries of the gavotte. But Charley Potts' pipe

was the only confidant of his growled anathemas, and on the whole

he got on remarkably well with his neighbours; for Mr. Lectern had

lent him bits of oak furniture to paint from; and once, when he was

ill, Mdlle. Stetti, who was the dearest, cheeriest, hardest-working,

best-tempered little creature in existence, had made him broths and

"goodies" with her own hand, and when he was well, had always a kind

word and a smile for him--and, indeed, revelled in the practical

humour and buffoonery of "_ce farceur_ Pott." For Mr. Potts was

nothing if not funny; the staircase leading to his rooms began to be

decorated immediately after you had passed Mdlle. Stetti's apartments;

an enormous hand, sketched in crayon, with an outstretched finger,

directed attention to an inscription--"To the halls of Potts!" Just

above the little landing you were confronted by a big beef-eater's

head, out of the mouth of which floated a balloon-like legend--"Walk

up, walk up, and see the great Potts!" The aperture of the letter-box

in the door formed the mouth in a capital caricatured head of Charley

himself; and instead of a bell-handle there hung a hare's-foot, beneath

which was gummed a paper label with a written inscription "Tug the

trotter."

Three days after the gathering at the Titian Sketching-Club, Mr.

Potts sat in his studio, smoking a pipe, and glaring vacantly at a

picture on an easel in front of him. It was not a comfortable room;

its owner's warmest friend could not have asserted that. There was

no carpet, and the floor was begrimed with the dirt of ages, and

with spilt tobacco and trodden-in cigar-ash. The big window was half

stopped-up, and had no curtain. An old oak-cabinet against the wall,

surmounted by the inevitable plaster torso, and studies of hands

and arms, had lost one of its supporting feet, and looked as though

momentarily about to topple forward. A table in the middle of the room

was crowded with litter, amongst which a pewter-pot reared itself

conspicuously. Over an old sofa were thrown a big rough Inverness-cape,

a wideawake hat, and a thick stick; while on a broken, ragged, but

theatrically-tawdry arm-chair, by the easel, were a big palette already

"set," a colour-box, and a sheaf of brushes. Mr. Potts was dressed in

a shepherd's-plaid shooting coat, adorned here and there with dabs of

paint, and with semi-burnt brown patches, the result of the incautious

dropping of incandescent tobacco and vesuvians. He had on a pair of

loose rough trousers, red-morocco slippers without heels, and he wore

no neckcloth; but his big turned-down shirt-collar was open at the

throat. He wore no beard, but had a large sweeping Austrian moustache,

which curled fiercely at the ends; had thin brown hair, light blue

eyes, and the freshest and healthiest of complexions. No amount of

late hours, of drinking and smoking, could apparently have any effect

on this baby-skin; and under the influence of cold water and yellow

soap, both of which he used in large quantities, he seemed destined

to remain--so far as his complexion was concerned--"beautiful for

ever,"--or at least until long after Madame Rachel's clients had seen

the worthlessness of pigments. Looking at him as he sat there--his

back bent nearly double, his eyes fixed on his picture, his pipe fixed

stiffly between his teeth, and his big bony hands clasped in front

of him--there was no mistaking him for anything but a gentleman;

ill-dressed, slatternly, if you like; but a true gentleman, every inch

of him.

The "trotter" outside being tugged with tremendous violence, roused

him from his reverie, and he got up and opened the door, saying, as

he did so, "Why didn't you ring? I would, if I'd been you. You're in

the bell-hanging line, I should think, by the way you jerked my wire.

Hollo, Bowker, my boy! is it you? What's the matter? Are you chivied by

a dun on the staircase, or fainting for a pull at the pewter, that you

come with such a ring as that? Bring your body in, old man; there's a

wind here enough to shave you."

Mr. Bowker preceded his friend into the room, looked into the

pewter-pot, drained it, wiped his beard with a handkerchief; which

he took out of his hat, and said, in a solemn deep voice: "Potts, my

pipkin, how goes it?"

"Pretty well, old man, pretty well--considering the weather. And you?"

"Your William _se porte bien_. Hallo!" glancing at the easel, while

he took a pipe from his pocket and filled it from a jar on the table;

"hallo! something new! What's the subject? Who is the Spanish party in

tights? and what's the venerable buffer in the clerical get-up of the

period putting out his hand about?"

"Oh, it's a scene from _Gil Blas_, where the Archbishop of Grenada

discharges him, you know."

"No, I don't, and I don't want to hear; your William, dear boy, has

discovered that life is too short to have anything explained to him:

if he don't see it at first, he let's it pass. The young party's right

leg is out of drawing, my chick; just give your William a bit of chalk.

There--not being a patient at the Orthopaedic Hospital--that's where

his foot would come to. The crimson of the reverend gent's gown is

about as bad as anything Ive seen for a long time, dear boy. Hand over

the palette and brushes for two minutes. Your William is a rum old

skittle; but if there's one thing he knows about, it is colour." And

Charley, who knew that, with all his eccentricity, Mr. Bowker, or "your

William," as he always spoke of himself; was a thorough master of his

art, handed him what he required, and sat by watching him.

A fat bald-headed man with a grizzled beard, a large paunch and flat

splay feet, badly dressed and not too clean, Mr. Bowker did not give

one the idea of ever having been an "object of interest" to any one

save the waiter at the tavern where he dined, or the tobacconist where

he bought his Cavendish. But yet there had been a day when bright eyes

grew brighter at his approach, tiny ears latticed with chestnut-hair

had eagerly drunk in the music of his voice, gentle hands had thrilled

beneath his touch. He had bright blue eyes himself then, and long

hair, and a slim figure. He was young Mr. Bowker, whose first pictures

exhibited at Somerset House had made such a sensation, and who was so

much noticed by Sir David Wilkie, and for whom Mr. Northcote prophesied

such a future, and whom Mr. Fuseli called a "coot prave poy!" He was

the young Mr. Bowker who was recommended by Sir Thomas Lawrence as

drawing-master to the lovely young wife of old Mr. Van Den Bosch,

the Dutch banker and financier long resident in London. He was "that

scoundrel Bowker, sir," who, being wildly romantic, fell head-over-ears

in love with his pupil; and finding that she was cruelly ill-treated by

the old ruffian her husband, ran away with her to Spain, and by that

rash act smashed-up his career and finally settled himself for ever.

Old Van Den Bosch got a divorce, and died, leaving all his money to

his nephews; and then William Bowker and the woman he had eloped with

returned to England, to find himself universally shunned and condemned.

His art was as good, nay a thousand times better than ever; but they

would not hear of him at the Royal Academy now; would not receive his

pictures; would not allow the mention of his name. Patrons turned their

backs on him, debts accumulated, the woman for whom he had sacrificed

everything died,--penitent so far as she herself was concerned, but

adoring her lover to the last, and calling down blessings on him with

her latest breath. And then William Bowker strove no more, but accepted

his position and sunk into what he was, a kindly, jolly, graceless

vagabond, doing no harm, but very little good. He had a little private

money on which he lived; and as time progressed, some of his patrons,

who found he painted splendidly and cheaply, came back to him and gave

him commissions; but he never again attempted to regain his status;

and so long as he had enough to supply his simple daily wants, seemed

content. He was a great favourite with some half-dozen young men of

Charley Potts's set, who had a real love and regard for him, and was

never so happy as when helping them with advice and manual assistance.

Charley watched him at his work, and saw with delight the archbishop's

robe gradually growing all a-glow beneath the master's touch; and then,

to keep him in good-humour and amused, began to talk, telling him a

score of anecdotes, and finally asking him if he'd heard anything of

Tommy Smalt.

"Tommy Smalt, sir?" cried Bowker, in his cheery voice; "Tommy Smalt,

sir, is in clover! Your William has been able to put Tommy on to

a revenue of at least thirty shillings a-week. Tommy is now the

right-hand man of Jacobs of Newman Street; and the best judges say that

there are no Ostades, Jan Steens, or Gerard Dows like Tommy's."

"What do you mean?--copies?"

"Copies! no, sir: originals."

"Originals!"

"Certainly! original Tenierses, of boors drinking; Wouvermanns,

not forgetting the white horse; or Jan Steens, with the

never-failing episode;--all carefully painted by Tommy Smalt and his

fellow-labourers! Ah, Jacobs is a wonderful man! There never was such

a fellow; he sticks at nothing; and when he finds a man who can do his

particular work, he keeps him in constant employment."

"Well, but is the imposition never detected? Don't the pictures look

new?"

"Oh, most verdant of youths, of course not! The painting is clobbered

with liquorice-water; and the varnish is so prepared that it cracks at

once; and the signature in the corner is always authentic; and there's

a genuine look of cloudy vacancy and hopeless bankruptcy about the

whole that stamps it at once to the connoisseur as the real thing.

Tommy's doing a 'Youth's Head' by Rembrandt now, which ought to get him

higher pay; it ought indeed. It's for a Manchester man. They're very

hot about Rembrandts at Manchester."

"Well, you've put me up to a new wrinkle. And Jacobs lives by this?"

"Lives by it! ay, and lives like a prince too. Mrs. J. to fetch him

every day in an open barouche, and coachman and footman in skyblue

livery, and all the little J.'s hanging over the carriage-doors,

rendering Newman Street dark with the shadow of their noses. Lives by

it! ay, and why not? There will always be fools in the world, thank

Heaven!--or how should you and I get on, Charley, my boy?--and so

long as people will spend money on what they know nothing about, for

the sake of cutting-out their friends, gaining a spurious reputation

for taste, or cutting a swell as 'patrons of the fine-arts,'--patrons

indeed! that word nearly chokes me!--it's quite right that they should

be pillaged and done. No man can love art in the same manner that he

can love pancakes. He must know something about it, and have some

appreciation of it. Now no man with the smallest knowledge would go

to Jacobs; and so I say that the lords and railway-men and cotton-men

who go there simply as a piece of duff--to buy pictures as they would

carpets--are deuced well served out. There! your William has not talked

so much as that in one breath for many a long day. The pewter's empty.

Send for some more beer, and let's have a damp; my throat's as dry as a

lime-burner's wig."

Charley Potts took up the pewter-measure, and going on to the

landing outside the door, threw open the staircase-window, and gave

a shrill whistle. This twice repeated had some effect! for a very

much-be-ribboned young lady in the bar of the opposite public-house

looked up, and nodded with great complaisance; and then Charley,

having made a solemn bow, waved the empty quart-pot three times

round his head. Two minutes afterwards a bare-headed youth, with his

shirt-sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, crossed the road, carefully

bearing a pasteboard hat-box, with which he entered the house, and

which he delivered into Mr. Potts' hands.

"Good boy, Richard I never forget the hat-box; come for it this

evening, and take back both the empty pewters in it.--It would never

do, Bowker, my boy, to have beer--vulgar beer, sir--in its native

pewter come into a respectable house like this. The pious parties, who

buy their rattletraps and properties of old Lectern down below, would

be scandalised; and poor little Mossoo woman Stetti would lose her

swell connection. So Caroline and I--that's Caroline in the bar, with

the puce-coloured ribbons--arranged this little dodge; and it answers

first-rate."

"Ha--a!" said Mr. Bowker, putting down the tankard half-empty, and

drawing a long breath; "beer is to your William what what's-his-name

is to thingummy; which, being interpreted, means that he can't get on

without it. I never take a big pull at a pewter without thinking of our

Geoff. How is our Geoff?"

"Our Geoff is--hush! some one coming up stairs. What's to-day? Friday.

The day I told the tailor to call. Hush!"

The footsteps came creaking up the stairs until they stopped outside

Charley Potts' door, on which three peculiar blows were struck,--one

very loud, then two in rapid succession.

"A friend!" said Charley, going to the door and opening it. "Pass,

friend, and give the countersign! Hallo, Flexor! is it you? I forgot

our appointment for this morning. Come in."

It was, indeed, the great model, who, fresh-shaved, and with his hair

neatly poodled under his curly-brimmed hat, entered the room with a

swagger, which, when he perceived a stranger, he allowed to subside

into an elaborate bow.

"Now then, Flexor, get to work! we won't mind my friend here; he knows

all this sort of game of old," said Charley; while Flexor began to

arrange himself into the position of the expelled secretary of the

archbishop.

"Ay, and I know M. Flexor of old, that's another thing!" said Bowker,

with a deep chuckle, expelling a huge puff of smoke.

"Do you, sir?" said Flexor, still rigid in the Gil-Bias position, and

never turning his head; "maybe, sir; many gents knows Flexor."

"Yes; but many gents didn't know Flexor five-and-twenty years ago, when

he stood for Mercutio discoursing of Queen Mab."

"Lor' a mussy!" cried Flexor, forgetting all about his duty, parting

the smoke with his hand and bending down to look into William's face.

"It's Mr. Bowker, and I ought to have knowed him by the voice. And how

are you, sir? hearty you look, though you'yve got a paucity of nobthatch,

and what ''ir you 'ave is that gray, you might be your own grandfather.

Why, I haven't seen you since you was gold-medallist at the 'cademy,

'cept once when you come with Mrs.----"

"There, that'll do, Flexor! I'm alive still, you see; and so I see are

you. And your wife, is she alive?"

"O yes, sir; but, Lord, how different from what you know'd her! None

of your Wenuses, nor Dalilys, nor Nell Gwyns now! she's growed stout

and cumbersome, and never sits 'cept some gent wants a Mrs. Primrose

in that everlastin' Wicar, or a old woman a-scoldin' a gal because she

wants to marry a poor cove, or somethin' in that line; and then I says,

'Well, Jane, you may as well earn a shillin' an hour as any one else,'

I says."

"And you've been a model all these years, Flexor?"

"Well, no sir--off and on; but Ive always come back to it. I was

a actor for three years; did Grecian stators,--Ajax defyin' the

lightnin'; Slave a-listenin' to conspirators; Boy a-sharpenin' his

knife, and that game, you know, in a cirkiss. But I didn't like it;

they're a low lot, them actors, with no feelin' for art. And then Iwas

a gentleman's servant; but that wouldn't do; they do dam' and cuss

their servants so, the gentlemen do, as I couldn't stand it; and I was

a mute."

"A mute!--what, a funeral mute?"

"Yes, sir; black-job business; and wery good that is,--plenty of

pleasant comp'ny and agreeable talk, and nice rides in the summer time

on the 'earses to all the pleasant simmetries in the suburbs! But in

the winter it's frightful! and my last job I was nearly killed. We had

a job at 'Ampstead, in the debth of snow; and it was frightful cold on

the top of the 'Eath. It was the party's good lady as was going to be

interred, and the party himself were frightful near; in fact, a reg'lar

screw. Well, me and my mate had been standin' outside the 'ouse-door

with the banners in our 'ands for an hour, until we was so froze we

could scarcely hold the banners. So I says, I won't stand no longer, I

says; and I gev a soft rap, and told the servant we must have a drop

of somethin' short, or we should be killed with cold. The servant goes

and tells her master, and what do you think he says? 'Drink!' he says.

'Nonsense!' he says; '_if they're cold, let 'em jump about and warm

'emselves_,' he says. Fancy a couple of mutes with their banners in

their 'ands a-jumpin' about outside the door just before the party was

brought out. So that disgusted me, and I gev it up, and come back to

the old game agen."

"Now, Flexor," said Charley, "if you've finished your biography, get

back again."

"All right, sir!" and again Flexor became rigid, as the student of

Santillane.

"What were we talking of when Flexor arrived? O, I remember; I was

asking you about Geoff Ludlow. What of him?"

"Well, sir, Geoff Ludlow has made a thundering _coup_ at last. The

other night at the Titians he sold a picture to Stompff for two hundred

pounds; more than that, Stompff promised him no end of commissions."

"That's first-rate! Your William pledges him!" and Mr. Bowker finished

the stout.

"He'll want all he can make, gentlemen," said Flexor, who, seeing the

pewter emptied, became cynical; "he'll want all he can make, if he goes

on as he's doin' now."

"What do you mean?" asked Bowker.

"He's in love, Mr. Ludlow is; that's wot I mean. That party--you know,

Mr. Potts--as you brought to our place that night--he's been to see

her every day, he has; and my missis says, from what she 'ave seen and

'eard--well, that's neither 'ere nor there," said Flexor, checking

himself abruptly as he remembered that the keyhole was the place whence

Mrs. Flexor's information had been derived.

Charley Potts gave a loud whistle, and said, "The devil!" then turning

to Bowker, he was about to tell the story of the wet night's adventure,

but William putting up his finger warningly, grunted out "_Nachher!_"

and Charley, who understood German, ceased his chatter and went on with

his painting.

When the sitting was over, and Flexor had departed, William Bowker

returned to the subject, saying, "Now, Charley, tell your William all

about this story of Geoff and his adventure."

Charley Potts narrated it circumstantially, Bowker sitting grimly by

and puffing his pipe the while. When he had finished, Bowker never

spoke for full five minutes; but his brow was knit, and his teeth

clenched round his pipe. At length he said, "This is a bad business, so

far as I see; a devilish bad business! If the girl were in Geoff's own

station or if he were younger, it wouldn't so much matter; but Geoff

must be forty now, and at that age a man's deuced hard to turn from any

thing he gets into his head. Well, we must wait and see. I'd rather it

were you, Charley, by a mile; one might have some chance then. But you

never think of any thing of that sort, eh?"

What made Charley Potts colour as he said, "Welt--not in Geoff's line,

at all events?"

William Bowker noticed the flush, and said ruefully, "Ah, I see! Always

the way! Now let's go and get some beef or something to eat: I'm

hungry."

CHAPTER VIII.

THROWING THE FLY.

Mr. Flexor was by nature mendacious; indeed his employers used

pleasantly to remark, that when he did not lie, it was simply by

accident; but in what he had mentioned to Charley Potts about Geoffrey

Ludlow's visits to the nameless female then resident in his, Flexor's,

house, he had merely spoken the truth. To be sure there had been an

_arrière pensée_ in his remark; the fact being that Flexor objected

to matrimony as an institute amongst his patrons. He found that by an

artist in a celibate state beer was oftener sent for, donations of

cigars were more frequent, cupboards were more constantly unlocked, and

irregularities of attendance on his part, consequent on the frivolities

of the preceding night, were more easily overlooked, than when there

was a lady to share confidence and keys, and to regard all models, both

male and female, as "horrid creatures." But although Mr. Flexor had

spoken somewhat disparagingly of Geoffrey's frequent visits, and had

by his hints roused up a certain amount of suspicion in the breasts of

Charley Potts and that grim old cynic William Bowker, he was himself

far from knowing what real ground for apprehension existed, or how far

matters had progressed, at least with one of the parties concerned.

For Geoffrey Ludlow was hard hit! In vain he attempted to argue with

himself that all he had done, was doing, and might do, was but prompted

by benevolence. A secret voice within him told him that his attempts at

self-deceit were of the feeblest, and that, did he but dare to confess

it, he knew that there was in this woman whom he had rescued from

starvation an attraction more potent than he had ever yet submitted to.

It was, it may be said, his duty to call and see how she was getting

on, to learn that she wanted for nothing, to hear from her own lips

that his orders for her comfort had been obeyed; but it was not his

duty to sit watching jealously every glance of her eye, every turn of

her head, every motion of her lithe fingers. It was _not_ his duty to

bear away with him recollections of how she sat when she said this or

answered that; of the manner in which, following a habit of hers, she

would push back the thick masses of her gleaming hair, and tuck them

away behind her pretty ears; or, following another habit, she would

drum petulantly on the floor with her little foot, when talking of

any thing that annoyed her--as, for instance, Mrs. Flexor's prying

curiosity.

What was it that caused him to lie awake at night, tossing from side

to side on his hot pillow, ever before him the deep-violet eyes, the

pallid face set in masses of deep-red hair, the slight frail figure?

What was it that made his heart beat loudly, his breath come thickly,

his whole being tingle with a strange sensation--now ecstatic delight,

now dull blank misery? Not philanthropy, I trow. The superintendents

of boys' reformatories and refuges for the houseless poor may, in

thinking over what good they have achieved, enjoy a comfortable amount

of self-satisfaction and proper pride; but I doubt if the feeling

ever rises to this level of excitement. Not much wonder if Geoffrey

himself, suffering acutely under the disease, knew not, or refused to

avow to himself, any knowledge of the symptoms. Your darling child,

peacefully sleeping in his little bed, shall show here and there an

angry skin-spot, which you think heat or cold, or any thing else,

until the experienced doctor arrives, and with a glance pronounces it

scarlet-fever. Let us be thankful, in such a case, that the prostrate

patient is young. Geoffrey's was as dire a malady, and one which,

coming on at forty years of age, usually places the sufferer in a

perilous state. It was called Love; not the ordinary sober inclination

of a middle-aged man, not that thin line of fire quivering amongst a

heap of ashes which betokens the faded passion of the worn and sated

voluptuary; this was boy-love, calf-love, mad-spooniness--any thing

by which you can express the silliest, wildest, pleasantest, most

miserable phase of human existence. It never comes but once to any

one. The _caprices_ of the voluptuary are as like to each other as

peas or grains of sand; the platonic attachments or the sentimental

_liaisons_ indulged in by foolish persons of both sexes with nothing to

do may have some slight shade of distinction, but are equally wanting

in backbone and _vis_. Not to man or woman is it given to be ever

twice "in love"--a simple phrase, which means every thing, but needs

very little explanation. My readers will comprehend what I want to

convey, and will not require my feeble efforts in depicting the state.

Suffice it to say, that Geoffrey Ludlow, who had hitherto gone through

life scot-free, not because he was case-hardened, not because he was

infection-proof, or that he had run no risks, but simply from the

merest chance,--now fell a victim to the disease, and dropped powerless

before its attack.

He did not even strive to make head against it much. A little of his

constitutional wavering and doubtfulness came into play for a short

time, suggesting that this passion--for such he must allow it--was

decidedly an unworthy one; that at present he knew nothing of the

girl's antecedents; and that her actual state did not promise much for

all she had to tell of what had gone before. At certain times too,

when things present themselves in their least roseate garb, notably on

waking in the morning, for instance, he allowed, to himself, that he

was making a fool of himself; but the confidence extended no farther.

And then, as the day grew, and the sun came out, and he touched up his

picture, and thought of the commissions Mr. Stompff had promised him,

he became brighter and more hopeful, and he allowed his thoughts to

feast on the figure then awaiting him in Little Flotsam Street, and he

put by his sheaf of brushes and his palette, and went up and examined

himself in the glass over the mantelpiece. He had caught himself doing

this very frequently within the last few days, and, half-chuckling

inwardly, had acknowledged that it was a bad sign. But though he

laughed, he tweaked out the most prominent gray hairs in his beard,

and gave his necktie a more knowing twist, and removed the dabs of

stray paint from his shooting-coat. Straws thrown up show which way the

wind blows, and even such little sacrifices to vanity as these were in

Geoffrey Ludlow very strong signs indeed.

He had paid three visits to Little Flotsam Street; and on the

fourth morning, after a very poor pretence of work, he was at the

looking-glass settling himself preparatory to again setting out. Ever

since that midnight adventure after the Titians meeting, Geoffrey had

felt it impossible to take his usual daily spell at the easel, had not

done five-pounds' worth of real work in the whole time, had sketched-in

and taken out, and pottered, and smoked over his canvas, perfectly

conscious that he was doing no good, utterly unable to do any better.

On this fourth morning he had been even more unsuccessful than usual;

he was highly nervous; he could not even set his palette properly, and

by no manner of means could he apply his thoughts to his work. He had

had a bad night; that is, he had woke with a feeling that this kind

of penny-journal romance, wherein a man finds a starving girl in the

streets and falls desperately in love with her, could go on no longer

in London and in the nineteenth century. She was better now, probably

strong enough to get about; he would learn her history, so much of it

at least as she liked to tell; and putting her in some way of earning

an honest livelihood, take his leave of her, and dismiss her from his

thoughts.

He arrived at this determination in his studio; he kept it as he

walked through the streets; he wavered horribly when he came within

sight of the door; and by the time he knocked he had resolved to let

matters take their chance, and to act as occasion might suggest.

It was not Mrs. Flexor who opened the door to him, but that worthy

woman's youngest plague, Reg'las, who, with a brown eruption

produced by liquorice round his lips, nodded his head, and calmly

invited the visitor, as he would have done any one else, to "go up

'tairs." Geoffrey entered, patted the boy's head, and stopped at the

parlour-door, at which he gave a low rap, and immediately turning the

handle, walked in.

She was lying as usual on the sofa, immediately opposite the door; but,

what he had never seen before, her hair was freed from the confining

comb, and was hanging in full luxuriance over her shoulders. Great

heavens, how beautiful she looked! There had been a certain piquancy

and _chic_ in her appearance when her hair had been taken saucily off

her face and behind her ears; but they were nothing as compared to the

profound expression of calm holy resignation in that dead-white face

set in that deep dead-gold frame of hair. Geoff started when he saw

it; was it a Madonna of Raphael's, or a St. Teresa of Guido's, which

flashed across his mind? And as he looked she raised her eyes, and a

soft rosy flush spread over her face, and melted as quickly as it came.

He seated himself on a chair by her side as usual, and took her hand as

usual, the blood tingling in his fingers as he touched hers--as usual.

She was the first to speak.

"You are very early this morning. I scarcely expected you so soon--as

you may see;" and with a renewed flush she took up the ends of her

hair, and was about to twist them up, when Geoffrey stopped her.

"Leave it as it is," said he in a low tone; "it could not be better;

leave it as it is."

She looked at him as he spoke; not a full straight glance, but through

half-closed lids; a prolonged gaze,--half-dreamy, half-intense; then

released her hair, and let it again fall over her shoulders in a rich

red cloud.

"You are much better?"

"Thanks to you, very much; thanks to you!" and her little hand came out

frankly, and was speedily swallowed up in his big palm.

"No thanks at all; that is--well, you know. Let us change the subject.

I came to say--that--that--"

"You hesitate because you are afraid of hurting my feelings. I think I

can understand. I have learnt the world--God knows in no easy school;

you came to say that I had been long enough a pensioner on your

charity, and now must make my own way. Isn't that it?"

"No, indeed; not, that is not entirely what I meant. You see--our

meeting--so strange--"

"Strange enough for London and this present day. You found me starving,

dying, and you took care of me; and you knew nothing of me--not even my

name--not even my appearance."

There was a something harsh and bitter in her tone which Geoffrey had

never remarked before. It jarred on his ear; but he did not further

notice it. His eyes dropped a little as he said, "No, I didn't; I do

not know your name."

She looked up at him from under her eyelids; and the harshness had all

faded out of her voice as she said, "My name is Margaret Dacre." She

stopped, and looked at him; but his face only wore its grave honest

smile. Then she suddenly raised herself on the sofa, and looking

straight into his face, said hurriedly, "You are a kind man, Mr.

Ludlow; a kind, generous, honourable man; there are many men would have

given me food and shelter--there are very few who would have done it

unquestioning, as you have."

"You were my guest, Miss Dacre, and that was enough, though the

temptation was strong. How one evidently born and bred a lady could

have--"

"Ah, now," said she, smiling fainting, "you are throwing off your

bonds, and all man's curiosity is at work."

"No, on my honour; but--I don't know whether you know, but any one

acquainted with the world would see that--gad! I scarcely know how to

put it--but--fact is, that--people would scarcely understand--you must

excuse me, but--but the position, Miss Dacre!" and Geoff pushed his

hands through his hair, and knew that his cheeks were flaming.

"I see what you mean," said she, "and you are only explaining what I

have for the last day or two felt myself; that the--the position must

be altered. But you have so far been my friend, Mr. Ludlow--for I

suppose the preserver of one's life is to be looked upon as a friend,

at all events as one actuated by friendly motives--that I must ask you

to advise me how to support it."

"It would be impossible to advise unless--I mean, unless one knew, or

had some idea--what, in fact, one had been accustomed to."

The girl sat up on the sofa, and this time looked him steadily in the

face for a minute or so. Then she said, in a calm unbroken voice, "You

are coming to what I knew must arise, to what is always asked, but what

I hitherto have always refused to tell. You, however, have a claim to

know--what I suppose people would call my history." Her thin lips were

tightly pressed and her nostrils curved in scorn as she said these

words. Geoffrey marked the change, and spoke out at once, all his usual

hesitation succumbing before his earnestness of purpose.

"I have asked nothing," said he; "please to remember that; and further,

I wish to hear nothing. You are my guest for so long as it pleases

you to remain in that position. When you wish to go, you will do so,

regretted but certainly unquestioned." If Geoffrey Ludlow ever looked

handsome, it was at this moment. He was a little nettled at being

suspected of patronage, and the annoyance flushed his cheek and fired

his eyes.

"Then I am to be a kind of heroine of a German fairytale; to appear,

to sojourn for a while--then to fade away and never to be heard of

ever after, save by the good fortune which I leave behind me to him

who had entertained an angel unawares. Not the last part of the story,

I fear, Mr. Ludlow; nor indeed any part of it. I have accepted your

kindness; I am grateful--God knows how grateful for it--and now, being

strong again--you need not raise your eyebrows; I am strong, am I not,

compared with the feeble creature you found in the streets?--I will

fade away, leaving gratitude and blessings behind me."

"But what do you intend to do?"

"Ah! there you probe me beyond any possibility of reply. I shall--"

"I--I have a notion, Miss Dacre, just come upon me. It was seeing you

with your hair down--at least, I think it was--suggested it; but I'm

sure it's a good one. To sit, you know, as a model--of course I mean

your face, you know, and hair, and all that sort of thing, so much in

vogue just now; and so many fellows would be delighted to get studies

of you--the pre-Raphaelite fellows, you know; and it isn't much--the

pay, you know: but when one gets a connexion--and I'm sure that I could

recommend--O, no end of fellows." It was not that this was rather a

longer speech than usual that made Geoffrey terminate it abruptly; it

was the expression in Margaret Dacre's gray eyes.

"Do you think I could become a model, Mr. Ludlow--at the beck and call

of every man who chose to offer me so much per hour? Would you wish

to see me thus?" and as she said the last words she knit her brows,

leaning forward and looking straight at him under her drooping lids.

Geoffrey's eyes fell before that peculiar glance, and he pushed his

hands through his hair in sheer doubtful desperation.

"No!" he said, after a minute's pause "it wouldn't do. I hadn't thought

of that. You see, I--O by Jove, another idea! You play? Yes, I knew you

did by the look of your hands! and talk French and German, I daresay?

Ah, I thought so! Well, you know, I give lessons in some capital

families--drawing and water-colour sketching--and I'm constantly asked

if I know of governesses. Now what's to prevent my recommending you?"

"What, indeed? You have known me so long! You are so thoroughly

acquainted with my capabilities--so persuaded of my respectability!"

The curved lips, the petulant nostril, the harsh bitter voice again!

Geoff winced under them. "I think you are a little prejudiced," he

began. "A little--"

"A little nothing! Listen, Mr. Ludlow! You have saved me from death,

and you are kind enough to wish me, under your auspices, to begin life

again. Hear, first, what was my former life. Hear it, and then see the

soundness of your well-intentioned plans. My father was an infantry

captain, who was killed in the Crimea. After the news came of his

death, my mother's friends, wealthy tradespeople, raised a subscription

to pay her an annuity of 150_l_, on condition of her never troubling

them again. She accepted this, and she and I went to live for cheapness

at Tenby in Wales. There was no break in my life until two years since,

when I was eighteen years old. Up to that time, school, constant

practice at home (for I determined to be well educated), and attendance

on my mother, an invalid, formed my life. Then came the usual

character--without which the drama of woman's life is incomplete--a

man!"

She hesitated for a moment, and looked up as Geoffrey Ludlow leaned

forward, breathing thickly through his nostrils; then she continued--

"This one was a soldier, and claimed acquaintance with a dead comrade's

widow; had his claim allowed, and came to us morning, noon, and night.

A man of the world, they called him; could sit and talk with my mother

of her husband's virtues and still-remembered name, and press my hand,

and gaze into my eyes, and whisper in my ear whenever her head was

turned."

"And you?"

"And I! What would a girl do, brought up at a sleepy watering-place,

and seeing nobody but the curate or the doctor? I listened to his every

word, I believed his every look; and when he said to me, 'On such a

night fly with me,' I fled with him without remorse."

Geoffrey Ludlow must have anticipated something of this kind, and yet

when he heard it, he dropped his head and shook it, as though under the

effect of a staggering blow. The action was not unnoticed by Margaret.

"Ah," said she, in low tones and with a sad smile, "I saw how your

schemes would melt away before my story."

This time it was his hand that came out and caught hers in its grip.

"Ah, wait until you have heard the end, now very close at hand. The

old, old story: a coming marriage, which never came, protracted and

deferred now for one excuse, now for another--the fear of friends, the

waiting for promotion, the--ah, every note in the whole gamut of lies!

And then--"

"Spare yourself and me--I know enough!"

"No; hear it out! It is due to you, it is due to me. A sojourn in

Italy, a sojourn in England--gradual coolness, final flight. But such

flight! One line to say that he was ruined, and would not drag me

down in his degradation--no hope of a future meeting--no provision

for present want. I lived for a time by the sale of what he had given

me,--first jewels, then luxuries, then--clothes. And then, just as I

dropped into death's jaws, you found me."

"Thank God!" said Geoffrey earnestly, still retaining the little hand

within his own; "thank God! I can hear no more to-day--yes; one thing,

his name?"

"His name," said she, with fixed eyes, "I have never mentioned to

mortal; but to you I will tell it. His name was Leonard Brookfield."

"Leonard Brookfield," repeated Geoffrey. "I shall not forget it. Now

adieu! We shall meet to-morrow."

He bowed over her hand and pressed it to his lips, then was gone; but

as his figure passed the window, she raised herself upright, and ere

he vanished from her sight, from between her compressed lips came the

words, "At last! at last!"

CHAPTER IX.

SUNSHINE IN THE SHADE.

What is a dull life? In what does the enjoyment of existence consist?

It is a comparative matter, after all, I fancy. A Londoner, cantering

homeward down the Row, will lift his hat as he passes three horsemen

abreast, the middle one of whom, comely, stout, and pleasant-looking,

bows in return; or, looking after an olive-coloured brougham with a

white horse, out of the window of which looms a lined leery-looking

face, will say, "How well Pam holds out!" and will go home to dinner

without bestowing another thought on the subject; whereas the mere fact

of having seen the Prince of Wales or Lord Palmerston would give a

countryman matter for reflection and conversation for a couple of days.

There are even Londoners who look upon a performance of chamber-music,

or a visit to the Polytechnic Institute as an excitement; while in a

provincial town to attend a lecture on "Mnemonics," or the dinner of

the farmers' club, is the acme of dissipation. Some lives are passed

in such a whirl that even the occasional advent among their kindred

of the great date-marker, Death, is scarcely noticed; others dwindle

away with such unvarying pulsations that the purchase of a new bonnet,

the lameness of an old horse, the doctor's visit, the curate's cough,

are all duly set down as notabilia worthy to be recorded. Who does not

recollect the awe and reverence with which one regarded the Bishop

of Bosphorus, when, a benevolent seraph in a wig (they wore wigs in

those days) and lawn sleeves, he arrived at the parish church for the

confirmation-service? It was exciting to see him; it was almost too

much to hear his voice; but now, if you are a member of the Athenaeum

Club, you may see him, and two or three other prelates, reading the

evening papers, or drinking their pint of sherry with the joint, and

speaking to the waiters in voices akin to those of ordinary mortals;

may even see him sitting next to Belmont the poet, whose _Twilight

Musings_ so delighted your youth, but whom you now find to be a fat man

with a red face and a tendency to growl if there be not enough schalot

sent up with his steak.

If there were ever a man who should have felt the influence of a dull

life, it was Lord Caterham, who never repined. And yet it would be

difficult to imagine any thing more terribly lonely than was that man's

existence. Dressed by his servant, his breakfast over, and he wheeled

up to his library-table, there was the long day before him; how was

he to get through it? Who would come to see him? His father, perhaps,

for five minutes, with a talk about the leading topic treated of in

the _Times_, a remark about the change in the weather, a hope that his

son would "get out into the sunshine," and as speedy a departure as

could be decently managed. His mother, very rarely, and then only for a

frosty peck at his cheek, and a tittered hope that he was better. His

brother Lionel, when in town, when not else engaged, when not too seedy

after "a night of it,"--his brother Lionel, who would throw himself

into an easy-chair, and, kicking out his slippered feet, tell Caterham

what a "rum fellow" he, Lionel, thought him; what a "close file;" what

a "reserved, oyster-like kind of a cove!" Other visitors occasionally.

Algy Barford, genial, jolly, and quaint; always welcome for his bright

sunshiny face, his equable temper, his odd salted remarks on men and

things. A bustling apothecary, with telescopic shoulders and twinkling

eyelids, who peered down Lord Caterham's throat like a magpie looking

into a bone, and who listened to the wheezings of Lord Caterham's chest

with as much intentness as a foreigner in the Opera-pit to the prayer

in _Der Freischütz_. Two or three lounging youths, fresh from school

or college, who were pleased to go away afterwards and talk of their

having been with him, partly because he was a lord, partly because

he was a man whose name was known in town, and one with whom it was

rather _kudos_ to be thought intimate. There are people who, under such

circumstances, would have taken their servants into their confidence;

but Lord Caterham was not one of these. Kindly and courteous to all,

he yet kept his servant at the greatest distance; and the man knew

that to take the slightest liberty was more than his place was worth.

There were no women to talk with this exile from his species; there

were none on sufficiently intimate footing to call on him and sit with

him, to talk frankly and unreservedly that pleasant chatter which

gives us the keynote to their characters; and for this at least Lord

and Lady Beauport were unfeignedly thankful. Lord Beauport's knowledge

of the world told him that there were women against whom his son's

deformity and isolated state would be no defence, to whom his rank and

position would be indefinable attractions, by whom he would probably

be assailed, and with whom he had no chance of coping. Not bad women,

not _intrigantes_,--such would have set forth their charms and wasted

their dalliances in vain,--but clever heartless girls, brought up by

matchmaking mothers, graduates in the great school of life, skilled

in the deft and dexterous use of all aggressive weapons, unscrupulous

as to the mode of warfare so long as victory was to be the result.

In preventing Lord Caterham from making the acquaintance of any such

persons, Lord Beauport took greater pains than he had ever bestowed on

anything in connection with his eldest son; and, aided by the astute

generalship of his wife, he had succeeded wonderfully.

Only once did there seem a chance of an enemy's scaling the walls

and entering the citadel, and then the case was really serious. It

was at an Eton and Harrow match at Lord's that Lord Caterham first

saw Carry Chesterton. She came up hanging on the arm of her brother,

Con Chesterton, the gentleman farmer, who had the ground outside

Homershams, Lady Beauport's family place, and who begged to present his

sister to Lord Caterham, of whom she had heard so much. A sallow-faced

girl, with deep black eyes, arched brows, and raven hair in broad

bands, with a high forehead and a chiselled nose and tight thin lips,

was Carry Chesterton; and as she bent over Lord Caterham's chair and

expressed her delight at the introduction, she shot a glance that went

through Caterham's eyes, and into his very soul.

"She was a poetess, was Carry, and all that sort of thing," said

honest Con; "and had come up to town to try and get some of her

writings printed, you know, and that sort of thing; and your lordship's

reputation as a man of taste, you know, and that sort of thing,--if

you'd only look at the stuff and give your opinion, and that sort of

thing."

"That sort of thing," _i.e_. the compulsory conversion into a

Mecaenas, Lord Caterham had had tried-on before; but only in the case

of moon-struck men, never from such a pair of eyes. Never had he had

the request indorsed in such a deep-toned thrilling voice; and so he

acquiesced, and a meeting was arranged for the morrow, when Con was to

bring Carry to St. Barnabas Square; and that night Lord Caterham lay

in a pleasant state of fevered excitement, thinking of his expected

visitor. Carry came next day, but not Con. Con had some arrangements to

make about that dreadful yeomanry which took up so much of his time, to

see Major Latchford or Lord Spurrier, the colonel, and arrange about

their horrid evolutions; but Carry came, and brought her manuscript

book of poems. Would she read them? she could, and did, in a deep low

_traînante_ voice, with wonderful art and pathos, illustrating them

with elevations of her thick brows and with fervid glances from her

black eyes. They were above the average of women's verse, had nothing

namby-pamby in them, and were not merely flowing and musical, but

strong and fervid; they were full of passion, which was not merely

a Byronic _refrain_, but had a warmth and novelty of its own. Lord

Caterham was charmed with the verses, was charmed with the writer; he

might suggest certain improvements in them, none in her. He pointed out

certain lines which might be altered; and as he pointed them out, their

hands met, touched but for an instant, and on looking up, his eyes lost

themselves in hers.

Ah, those hand-touches and eye-glances! The oldest worldling has some

pleasure in them yet, and can recall the wild ecstatic thrill which

ran through him when he first experienced them in his salad-days.

But we can conceive nothing of their effect on a man who, under

peculiar circumstances, had lived a reserved self-contained life until

five-and-twenty years of age,--a man with keen imagination and warm

passions, who had "never felt the kiss of love, nor maiden's hand in

his," until his whole being glowed and tingled under the fluttering

touch of Carry Chesterton's lithe fingers, and in the fiery gaze of

her black eyes. She came again and again; and after every visit Lord

Caterham's passion increased. She was a clever woman with a purpose,

to the fulfilment of which her every word, her every action, tended.

Softly, delicately, and with the greatest _finesse_, she held up to

him the blank dreariness of his life, and showed him how it might be

cheered and consoled. In a pitying rather than an accusing spirit, she

pointed out the shortcomings of his own relatives, and indicated how,

to a person in his position, there could be but one who should be all

in all. This was all done with the utmost tact and refinement; a sharp

word, an appearance of eagerness, the slightest showing of the cards,

and the game would have been spoilt; but Carry Chesterton knew her

work, and did it well. She had been duly presented by Lord Caterham to

his father and mother, and had duly evoked first their suspicion, then

their rage. At first it was thought that by short resolute measures

the evil might be got rid of. So Lord Beauport spoke seriously to

his son, and Lady Beauport spoke warningly; but all in vain. For the

first time in his life Lord Caterham rebelled, and in his rebellion

spoke his mind; and in speaking his mind he poured forth all that

bitterness of spirit which had been collecting and fermenting so long.

To the crippled man's heartwrung wail of contempt and neglect, to his

passionate appeal for some one to love and to be loved by, the parents

had no reply. They knew that he had bitter cause for complaint; but

they also knew that he was now in pursuit of a shadow; that he was

about to assuage his thirst for love with Dead-Sea apples; that the

"set gray life and apathetic end" were better than the wild fierce

conflict and the warming of a viper in the fires of one's heart. Lady

Beauport read Carry Chesterton like a book, saw her ends and aims, and

told Lord Caterham plainly what they were. "This girl is attracted by

your title and position, Caterham,--nothing else," she said, in her

hard dry voice; "and the natural result has ensued." But that voice had

never been softened by any infusion of maternal love. Her opinions had

no weight with her son. He made no answer, and the subject dropped.

Lionel Brakespere, duly apprised by his mother of what was going on,

and urged to put a stop to it, took his turn at his brother, and spoke

with his usual mess-room frankness, and in his usual engaging language.

"Every body knew Carry Chesterton," he said, "all the fellows at the

Rag knew her; at least all who'd been quartered in the neighbourhood

of Flockborough, where she was a regular garrison hack, and had been

engaged to Spoonbill of the 18th Hussars, and jilted by Slummer of the

160th Rifles, and was as well known as the town-clock, by Jove; and

Caterham was a fiat and a spoon, and he'd be dashed if he'd see the

fam'ly degraded; and I say, why the doose didn't Caterham listen to

reason!" So far Captain the Honourable Lionel Brakespere; who, utterly

failing in his purpose and intent, and having any further access to

Lord Caterham's rooms strictly denied him by Lord Caterham's orders,

sought out Algy Barford and confided to him the whole story, and "put

him on" to save the fam'ly credit, and stop Caterham's rediklous

'fatuation.

Now if the infatuation in question had been legitimate, and likely to

lead to good results, Algy Barford would have been the very last man on

earth to attempt to put a stop to it, or to interfere in any way save

for its advancement. But this airy, laughing philosopher, with all his

apparent carelessness, was a man of the world and a shrewd reader of

human character; and he had made certain inquiries, the result of which

proved that Carry Chesterton was, if not all that Lionel Brakespere had

made her out, at all events a heartless coquette and fortune-huntress,

always rising at the largest fly. Quite recently jilted by that

charming creature Captain Slummer of the Rifles, she had been heard to

declare she would not merely retrieve the position hereby lost, but

achieve a much greater one; and she had been weak enough to boast of

her influence over Lord Caterham, and her determination to marry him

in spite of all his family's opposition. Then Algy Barford joined the

ranks of the conspirators, and brought his thoroughly practical worldly

knowledge to their camp. It was at a council held in Lady Beauport's

boudoir that he first spoke on the subject, his face radiant with good

humour, his teeth gleaming in the light, and his attention impartially

divided between the matter under discussion and the vagaries of a big

rough terrier which accompanied him every where.

"You must pardon me, dear Lady Beauport," said he; "but you've all

been harking forward on the wrong scent.--Down, Tinker! Don't let him

jump on your mother, Lionel; his fleas, give you my honour, big as

lobsters!--on the wrong scent! Dear old Caterham, best fellow in the

world; but frets at the curb, don't you know? Put him a couple of links

higher up than usual, and he rides rusty and jibs--jibs, by Jove! And

that's what you've been doing now. Dear old Caterham! not much to amuse

him in life, don't you know? goes on like a blessed old martyr; but at

last finds something which he likes, and you don't. Quite right, dear

Lady Beauport; _I_ see it fast enough, because I'm an old lad, and have

seen men and cities; but dear Caterham, who is all milk and rusks and

green peas, and every thing that is innocent, don't you know, don't

see it at all. And then you try to shake him by the shoulder and rouse

him out of his dream, and tell him that he's not in fairyland, not in

Aladdin's palace, not in a two-pair back in Craven Street, Strand.

Great mistake that, Lionel, dear boy. Dear Lady Beauport, surely your

experience teaches you that it is a great mistake to cross a person

when they're in that state?"

"But, Mr. Barford, what is to be done?"

"Put the helm about, Lady Beauport, and--Tinker! you atrocious

desperado, you shameless caitiff! will you get down?--put the helm

about, and try the other tack. Weve failed with dear old Caterham: now

let's try the lady. Caterham is the biggest fish she's seen yet; but

my notion is that if a perch came in her way, and seemed likely to

bite, she'd forget she'd ever seen a gudgeon. Now my brother Windermere

came to town last week, and he's an earl, you know, and just the sort

of fellow who likes nothing so much as a flirtation, and is all the

time thunderingly well able to take care of himself. I think if Miss

Chesterton were introduced to Windermere, she'd soon drop poor dear

Caterham."

Both Lionel and his mother agreed in this notion, and an early

opportunity was taken for the presentation of Lord Windermere to Miss

Chesterton. An acknowledged _parti_; a man of thews and sinews; frank,

generous, and affable: apparently candid and unsuspecting in the

highest degree, he seemed the very prize for which that accomplished

fortune-huntress had long been waiting; and forgetting the old fable of

the shadow and the substance she at once turned a decided cold shoulder

upon poor Lord Caterham, ceased visiting him, showed him no more

poetry, and within a week of her making Lord Windermere's acquaintance,

cut her old friend dead in Kensington Gardens, whither he had been

wheeled in the hope of seeing her. Ah, in how few weeks, having

discovered the sandy foundation on which she had been building, did

she come back, crouching and fawning and trying all the old devices,

to find the fire faded out of Caterham's eyes and the hope out of his

breast, and the prospect of any love or companionship as distant from

him as ever!

Yes, that was Lord Caterham's one experience of love; and after its

lame and impotent conclusion he determined he would never have another.

We have all of us determined that in our time; but few of us have kept

to our resolution so rigidly as did Lord Caterham, possibly because

opportunities have not been so wanting to us as to him. It is all that

horrible opportunity which saps our strongest resolutions; it is the

close proximity of the magnum of "something special" in claret which

leads to the big drink; it is the shaded walk, and the setting sun

behind the deep bank of purple clouds, and the solemn stillness, and

the upturned eyes and the provoking mouth, which lead to all sorts

of horrible mistakes. Opportunity after the Chesterton _escapade_

was denied to Lord Caterham both by himself and his parents. He shut

himself up in solitude: he would see no one save the apothecary and

Algy Barford, who indeed came constantly, feeling all the while

horribly treacherous and shamefaced. And then by degrees--by that

blessed process of Time against which we rail so much, but which is so

beneficial, of Time the anodyne and comforter, he fell back into his

old ways of life; and all that little storm and commotion was as though

it had never been. It left no marks of its fury on Caterham; he kept

no relics of its bright burning days: all letters had been destroyed.

There was not a glove nor a flower in his drawers--nothing for him

to muse and shake his head over. So soon as his passion had spent

itself--so soon as he could look calmly upon the doings of the few

previous months, he saw how unworthy they had been, and blotted them

from his memory for ever.

So until Annie Maurice had come to take up her position as his mother's

companion, Lord Caterham had been entirely without female society, and

since her advent he had first learned the advantages of associating

with a pure, genuine healthy woman. Like Carry Chesterton, she seemed

to take to the crippled man from her first introduction to him; but ah,

how unlike that siren did sweet Annie Maurice show her regard! There

was no more romance in her composition, so she would have told you

herself, than in the statue at Charing Cross; no eyebrow elevations, no

glances, no palpable demonstrations of interest. In quite a household

and domestic manner did this good fairy discharge her duties. She was

not the Elf, the Wili, the Giselle; in book-muslin and star-sprent

hair; she was the ordinary "Brownie," the honest Troll, which shows

its presence in help rather than ornament. Ever since Miss Maurice had

been an inmate of the house in Barnabas Square, Caterham's books had

been dusted, his books and papers arranged, his diurnal calendar set,

his desk freshened with a glass of newly-gathered flowers. Never before

had his personal wants been so readily understood, so deftly attended

to. No one smoothed his pillows so softly, wheeled his chair so easily,

his every look so quickly comprehended. To all that dreary household

Annie Maurice was a sunbeam; but on no one did she shine so brightly

as on that darkened spirit. The Earl felt the beaming influence of

her bright nature; the Countess could not deny her meed of respect to

one who was always "in her place;" the servants, horribly tenacious

of interference, could find no fault with Miss Maurice; but to none

appeared she in so bright a light as to Lord Caterham.

It was the morning after the receipt of the letter which Algy Barford

had left with him, and which had seemingly so much upset him, that

Caterham was sitting in his room, his hands clasped idly before him,

his looks bent, not on the book lying open on the desk, but on the

vacant space beyond it. So delicately constituted was his frame, that

any mental jar was immediately succeeded by acute bodily suffering; he

was hurt, not merely in spirit but in body; the machinery of his being

was shaken and put out of gear, and it took comparatively some length

of time for all to get into working order again. The strain on this

occasion had evidently been great, his head throbbed, his eyes were

surrounded with bistre rings, and the nervous tension of his clasped

fingers showed the unrest of his mind. Then came a gentle tap on the

door, a sound apparently instantly recognisable, for Lord Caterham

raised his head, and bade the visitor "Come in." It was Annie Maurice.

No one else opened the door so quickly and closed it so quietly behind

her, no one came with so light and yet so firm a step, no one else

would have seen that the sun was pouring in through the window on to

the desk, and would have crossed the room and arranged the blind before

coming up to the chair. Caterham knew her without raising his eyes, and

had said, "Ah, Annie dear!" before she reached him.

"I feared you were ill, my lord," she commenced; but a deep growl

from Caterham stopped her. "I feared you were ill, Arthur," she then

said; "you did not show at dinner last night, nor in the evening; but

I thought you might be disinclined for society--the Gervises were

here, you know, and the Scrimgeours, and I know you don't care for

our classical music, which is invariable on such occasions; but I met

Stephens on the staircase, and he gave me such a desponding account,

that I really feared you were ill."

"Only a passing dull fit, Annie; only a passing dull fit of extra

heaviness, and consequently extra duration! Stephens is a croaker, you

know; and having, I believe, an odd sort of Newfoundland-dog attachment

to me, is frightened if I have a finger-ache. But I'm very glad you've

come in, Annie, for I'm not really very bright even now, and you always

help to set me straight. Well, and how goes it with you, young lady?"

"Oh, very well, Arthur, very well."

"You feel happier than you did on your first coming among us? You feel

as though you were settling down into your home?"

"I should be worse than foolish if I did not, for every one tries to be

kind to me."

"I did not ask you for moral sentiments, Annie, I asked you for facts.

Do you feel settling down into your home?" And as Caterham said this,

he shot a keen scrutinising glance at the girl.

She paused for a moment ere she answered, and when she spoke she looked

at him straight out of her big brown eyes.

"Do I feel as if I were settling down into my home, Arthur? No; in all

honesty, no. I have no home, as you know well enough; but I feel that--"

"Why no home?" he interrupted; "isn't--No, I understand."

"No, you do not understand; and it is for that reason I speak. You

do not understand me, Lord--Arthur. You have notions which I want to

combat, and set right at once, please. I know you have, for Ive heard

hints of them in something you've said before. It all rises out of your

gentlemanly and chivalrous feeling, I know; but, believe me, you're

wrong. I fill the position of your mother's companion here, and you

have fallen into the conventional notion that I'm not well treated, put

upon, and all that kind of thing. On my honour, that is utterly wrong.

No two people could be kinder, after their lights, than Lord and Lady

Beauport are to me. Of your own conduct I need say no word. From the

servants I have perfect respect; and yet--"

"And yet?"

"Well, simply you choose the wrong word; there's no homey feeling about

it, and I should be false were I to pretend there were."

"But pardon me for thus pursuing the subject into detail,--my interest

in you must be my excuse,--what 'homey feeling,' as you call it, had

you at Ricksborough Vicarage, whence you came to us? The people there

are no closer blood-relations than we are; nor did they, as far as I

know--"

"Nor did they try more to make me happy. No, indeed, they could not

have tried more in that way than you do. But I was much younger

when I first went there, Arthur--quite a little child--and had all

sorts of childish reminiscences of cow-milking, and haymaking,

and harvest-homes, and all kinds of ruralities, with that great

balloon-shaped shadow of St. Paul's ever present on the horizon keeping

watch over the City, where dear old uncle Frank told me I should have

to get my living after he was gone. Its home-influence gained on me

even from the sorrow which I saw and partook of in it; from the sight

of my aunt's deathbed and my uncle's meek resignation overcoming his

desperate grief; from the holy comfort inspired in him by the discharge

of his holy calling; by the respect and esteem in which he was held by

all around, and which was never so much shown as when he wanted it most

acutely. These things, among many others, made that place home to me."

"Yes," said Lord Caterham, in a harsh dry voice; "I understand easily

enough. After such innocence and goodness I can fully comprehend what

it must be to you to read blue-books to my father, to listen to my

mother's _fade_ nonsense about balls, operas, and dresses, or to attend

to the hypochondriacal fancies of a valetudinarian like myself--"

"Lord Caterham! I don't think that even you have a right to insult me

in this way!"

"_Even_ I! thank you for the compliment, which implies--Bah! what a

brute I am! You'll forgive me, Annie, won't you? I'm horribly hipped

and low. Ive not been out for two days; and the mere fact of being a

prisoner to the house always fills my veins with bile instead of blood.

Ah, you won't keep that knit brow and those tightened lips any longer,

will you? No one sees more plainly than I do that your life here wants

certain--"

"Pray say no more, I--"

"Ah, Annie, for Heaven's sake don't pursue this miserable growl of

mine. Have some pity for my ill-health. But I want to see you with

as many surroundings natural to your age and taste as we can find in

this--hospital. There's music: you play and sing very sweetly; but you

can't--I know you can't--sit down with any ease or comfort to that

great furniture-van of a grand-piano in that gaunt drawing-room; that's

only fit for those long-haired foreigners who let off their fireworks

on Lady Beauport's reception-nights. You must have a good piano of your

own, in your own room or here, or somewhere where you can practise

quietly. I'll see about that. And drawing--for you have a great natural

talent for that; but you should have some lessons: you must keep it up;

you must have a master. There's a man goes to Lady Lilford's, a capital

fellow, whom I know; you must have him. What's his name? Ludlow--"

"What, Geoffrey Ludlow! dear old Geoff! He used to be papa's greatest

friend when we were at Willesden, you know,--and before that dreadful

bankruptcy, you know, Mr. Ludlow was always there. Ive sat on his knee

a thousand times; and he used to sketch me, and call me his little elf.

Oh yes, dear Arthur, I should like that,--I should like to have lessons

from Mr. Ludlow! I should so like to see him again!"

"Well, Annie, you shall. I'll get his address from the Lilfords and

write to him, and settle about his coming. And now, Annie, leave me,

dear; I'm a little tired, and want rest."

He was tired, and wanted rest; but he did not get it just then. Long

after Annie left the room he sat pondering, pondering, with a strange

feeling for which he himself could not account, but which had its

keynote in this: How strongly she spoke of the man Ludlow; how he

disliked her earnestness on the subject; and what would he not have

given, could he have thought she would have spoken so strongly of him.

CHAPTER X.

YOUR WILLIAM.

When you feel yourself gradually becoming enthralled, falling a

victim to a fascination all-potent, but scarcely all-satisfactory,

be it melancholy, or gambling, or drink, or love, there is nothing

so counteracting to the horrible influence as to brace your nerves

together, and go in for a grand spell of work. That remedy is always

efficacious, of course. It never fails, as Geoffrey Ludlow knew

very well; and that was the reason why, on the morning after his

last-described interview with Margaret Dacre, he dragged out from

behind a screen, where it had been turned with its face to the wall,

his half-finished picture intended for the Academy, and commenced

working on it with wonderful earnestness. It was a large canvas with

three principal figures: a young man, a "swell" of modern days, turning

away from the bold and eager glances of a somewhat brazen coquette,

and suddenly struck by the modest bashful beauty of a girl of the

governess-order seated at a piano. "Scylla and Charybdis" Geoff had

intended calling it, with the usual _Incidit in &c_. motto; and when

the idea first struck him he had taken pains with his composition,

had sketched his figures carefully, and had painted-in the flirt and

the man very successfully. The governess had as yet been a failure;

he had had no ideal to work from; the model who had sat to him was a

little coarse and clumsy, and irritated at not being able to carry

out his notion, he had put the picture by. But he now felt that work

was required of him, not merely as a distraction from thought, but as

an absolute duty which he owed to himself; and as this was a subject

likely to be appreciated by Mr. Stompff, he determined to work at it

again, and to have it ready for submission to the Hanging Committee of

the Academy. He boggled over it a little at first; he smoked two pipes,

staring at the canvas, occasionally shading his eyes with one hand, and

waving the other in a dreamy possessed manner in front of him. Then he

took up a brush and began to lay on a bit of colour, stepping back from

time to time to note the effect; and then the spirit came upon him, and

he went to work with all his soul.

What a gift is that of the painter, whose whole story can be read at

one glance, who puts what we require three thick volumes to narrate

into a few feet of canvas, who with one touch of his brush gives an

expression which we pen-and-ink workers should take pages to convey,

and even then could never hope to do it half so happily!--who sees his

work grow beneath his hand, and can himself judge of its effect on

others;--who can sit with his pipe in his mouth, and chirp away merrily

to his friend, the while his right hand is gaining him wealth and

honour and fame!

The spirit was on Geoffrey Ludlow, and the result came out splendidly.

He hoped to gain a good place on the Academy walls, he hoped to do

justice to the commissions which Mr. Stompff had given him; but there

was something beyond these two incentives which spurred his industry

and nerved his touch. After all his previous failures, it seemed

as though Scylla the governess would have the best of it at last.

Charybdis was a splendid creature, a bold, black-eyed, raven-haired

charmer, with her hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders, and

with a gorgeous passion-flower hanging voluptuously among her tresses;

a goddess amongst big Guardsmen, who would sit and suck their yellow

moustaches and express their admiration in fragmentary ejaculations,

or amongst youths from the Universities, with fluff instead of hair,

and blushes in place of _aplomb_. But in his later work the artist's

heart seemed to have gone with Scylla, who was to her rival as is a

proof after Sir Joshua to a French print, as a glass of Amontillado

to a _petit verre_ of Chartreuse,--a slight delicate creature, with

violet eyes and pallid complexion, and deep-red hair brought down in

thick braids, and tucked away behind such dainty little ears; her

modest gray dress contrasting, in its quaker-like simplicity, with the

brilliant-hued robe and rich laces of her rival. His morning's work

must have been successful, for--rare thing with him--Geoff himself was

pleased with it; no doubt of the inspiration now, he tried to deny it

to himself, but could not--the likeness came out so wonderfully. So he

gave way to the charm, and as he sat before the canvas, thoughtfully

gazing at it, he let his imagination run riot, and gave his pleasant

memories full play.

He had worked well and manfully, and had tolerably satisfied himself,

and was sitting resting, looking at what he had done, and thinking over

what had prompted his work, when there came a tap at the door, and his

sister Til crept noiselessly in. She entered softly, as was her wont

when her brother was engaged, and took up her position behind him. But

Miss Til was demonstrative by nature, and after a minute's glance could

not contain herself.

"Oh, you dear old Geoff; that is charming! oh, Geoff, how you have got

on! But I say, Geoff; the governess--what do you call her? I never can

recollect those Latin names, or Greek is it?--you know, and it does

not matter; but she is--you know, Geoff, I know you don't like me to

say so, but I can't find any other word--she is stunning! Not that

I think--I don't know, you know, of course, because we don't mix in

that sort of society--not that--that I think that people who--well, I

declare, I don't know any other word for them I--I mean swells--would

allow their governess to have her hair done in that style; but she

is de-licious! you've got a new model, Geoff; at least you've never

attempted any thing in that style before and I declare you've made a

regular hit. You don't speak, Geoff; don't you like what I'm saying?"

"My dear child, you don't give me the chance of saying any thing. You

rattle on with 'I know' and 'you know' and 'don't you know,' till I

can scarcely tell where I am. One thing I do manage to glean, however,

and that is that you are pleased with the picture, which is the very

best news that I could have. For though you're a most horrible little

rattletrap, and talk nineteen to the dozen, there is some sense in what

you say and always a great deal of truth."

"Specially when what I say is complimentary, eh, Geoff? Not that I

think I have ever said much in any other strain to you. But you haven't

told me about your new model, Geoff. Where did she come from?"

"My new model?"

"Yes, yes, for the governess, you know. That's new--I mean that hair

and eyes, and all that. You've never painted any thing like that before.

Where did she come from?"

There were few things that Geoffrey Ludlow would have kept from his

sister, but this was one of them; so he merely said:

"O, a model, Til dear--one of the usual shilling-an-hour victims."

"Sent you by Mr. Charles Potts, I suppose," said Miss Til, with unusual

asperity; "sent you for--" But here a knock at the door cut short the

young lady's remarks. "O, but if that is Mr. Potts," she resumed,

"don't say a word about what I said just now; don't, Geoff, there's a

dear."

It was not Mr. Potts who responded to Geoffrey Ludlow's "Come in." It

was Mr. Bowkees head which was thrust through the small space made

by the opening of the door; and it was Mr. Bowker's deep voice which

exclaimed:

"Engaged, eh? Your William will look in again."

But Til, with whom Mr. Bowker was a special favourite, from his strange

unconventional manners and rough _bonhomie_, called out at once: "Mr.

Bowker, it's only I--Geoff's sister Til;" and Geoff himself roaring out

that "Bowker was growing modest in his old age," that gentleman was

persuaded to come in; and closing the door lightly behind him, he went

up to the young lady, and bending over her hand, made her a bow such as

any _preux chevalier_ might have envied. A meeting with a lady was a

rare oasis in the desert of William Bowkees wasted life; but whenever

he had the chance he showed that he had been something more than the

mere pot-walloping boon-companion which most men thought him.

"Geoff's sister Til!" he repeated, looking at the tall handsome girl

before him,--"Geoff's sister Til! Ah, then it's perfectly right that

I should have lost all my hair, and that my beard should be grizzled,

and that I have a general notion of the omnipresence of old age. I

was inclined to grumble; but if 'Geoff's sister Til,' who I thought

was still a little child, is to come up and greet me in this guise, I

recant: Time is right; and your William is the only old fool in the

matter."

"It is your own fault, Mr. Bowker, that you don't know the changes that

take place in us. You know we are always glad to see you, and that

mamma is always sending you messages by Geoff."

"You are all very good, and--well, I suppose it is my fault; let's

say it is, at all events. What! going? There, you see the effect my

presence has when I come up on a chance visit."

"Not at all," said Til; "I should have gone five minutes ago if you

had not come in. I'll make a confidant of you, Mr. Bowker, and let you

into a secret. Those perpetual irritable pulls at the bell are the

tradespeople waiting for orders; and I must go and settle about dinner

and all sorts of things. Now goodbye." She shook hands with him, nodded

brightly at her brother, and was gone.

"That's a nice girl," said William Bowker, as the door closed after

her; "a regular nice girl--modest, ladylike, and true; none of your

infernal fal-lal affectations--honest as the day; you can see that in

her eyes and in every word she says. Where do you keep your tobacco?

All right. Your pipes want looking after, Geoff. Ive tried three, and

each is as foul as a chimney. Ah, this will do at last; now I'm all

right, and can look at your work. H--m! that seems good stuff. You must

tone-down that background a little, and put a touch of light here and

there on the dress, which is infernally heavy and Hamlet-like. Hallo,

Geoff, are you going in for the P.-R.-B. business?"

"Not I. What do you mean?"

"What do _you_ mean by this red-haired party, my boy? This is a new

style for you, Geoff, and one which no one would have thought of your

taking up. You weren't brought up to consider this the right style of

thing in old Sassoon's academy, Geoff. If the old boy could rise from

his grave, and see his favourite pupil painting a frizzy, red-haired,

sallow-faced woman as the realisation of beauty, I think he'd be glad

he'd been called away before such awful times."

There was a hesitation in Geoff's voice, and a hollowness in his smile,

as he answered:

"P.-R.-B. nonsense! Old Sassoon couldn't teach everything; and as for

his ideas of beauty, look how often he made us paint Mrs. S. and the

Miss S.'s, who, Heaven knows, were anything but reproductions of the

Venus Calipyge. The simple question, as I take it, is this--is the

thing a good thing or a bad one? Tell me that."

"As a work of art?"

"Of course; as you see it. What else could I mean?"

"As a work of art, it's good--undeniably good, in tone, and treatment,

and conception; as a work of prudence, it's infernally bad."

Geoff looked at him sharply for a minute, and William Bowker, calmly

puffing at his pipe, did not shrink from his friend's glance. Then,

with a flush, Geoff said:

"It strikes me that it is as a work of art you have to regard it. As to

what you say about a work of prudence, you have the advantage of me. I

don't understand you."

"Don't you?" said William. "I'm sorry for you. What model did you paint

that head from?"

"From no model."

"From life?"

"N-no; from memory--from--Upon my soul, Bowker, I don't see what right

you have to cross-question me in this way."

"Don't you?" said Bowker. "Give your William something to drink,

please; he can't talk when he's dry. What is that? B. and soda. Yes,

that'll do. Look here, Geoffrey Ludlow, when you were little more than

a boy, grinding away in the Life-School, and only too pleased if the

Visitor gave you an encouraging word, your William, who is ten years

your senior, had done work which made him be looked upon as the coming

man. He had the ball at his foot, and he had merely to kick it to send

it where he chose. He does not say this out of brag--you know it?"

Geoffrey Ludlow inclined his head in acquiescence.

"Your William didn't kick the bail; something interfered just as his

foot was lifted to send it flying to the goal--a woman."

Again Geoffrey Ludlow nodded in acquiescence.

"You have heard the story. Every body in town knew it, and each had

his peculiar version; but I will tell you the whole truth myself. You

don't know how I struggled on against that infatuation;--no, you may

think you do, but I am a much stronger man than you--am, or was--and

I saw what I was losing by giving way. I gave way. I knocked down the

whole fabric which, from the time I had had a man's thoughts, a man's

mind, a man's energy and power, I had striven to raise. I kicked it all

down, as Alnaschar did his basket of eggs, and almost as soon found how

vain had been my castle-building. I need scarcely go into detail with

you about that story: it was published in the Sunday newspapers of the

time; it echoed in every club-room; it has remained lingering about

art-circles, and in them is doubtless told with great gusto at the

present day, should ever my name be mentioned. I fell in love with a

woman who was married to a man of more than double her age,--a woman of

education, taste, and refinement; of singular beauty too--and that to a

young artist was not her least charm--tied for life to an old heartless

scoundrel. My passion for her sprung from the day of my first seeing

her; but I choked it down. I saw as plainly as I see this glass before

me now what would be the consequence of any absurd escapade on my part;

how it would crush me, how, infinitely more, it would drag _her_ down.

I knew what was working in each of us; and, so help me Heaven! I tried

to spare us both. I tried--and failed, dismally enough. It was for no

want of arguing with myself--from no want of forethought of all the

consequences that might ensue. I looked at all point-blank; for though

I was young and mad with passion, I loved that woman so that I could

even have crushed my own selfishness lest it should be harm to her.

I could have done this: I did it until--until one night I saw a blue

livid mark on her shoulder. God knows how many years that is ago, but I

have the whole scene before me at this moment. It was at some fine ball

(I went into what is called 'society' then), and we were standing in a

conservatory, when I noticed this mark. I asked her about it, and she

hesitated; I taxed her with the truth, which she first feebly denied,

then admitted. He had struck her, the hound! in a fit of jealous

rage,--had struck her with his clenched fist! Even as she told me this,

I could see him within a few yards of us, pretending to be rapt in

conversation, but obviously noting our conduct. I suppose he guessed

that she had told me of what had occurred. I suppose he guessed it

from my manner and the expression of my face, for a deadly pallor came

over his grinning cheeks; and as we passed out of the conservatory, he

whispered to her--not so low but that I caught the words--'You shall

pay for this, madam--you shall pay for this!' That determined me, and

that night we fled.--Give me some more brandy and soda, Geoff. Merely

to tell this story drags the heart out of my breast."

Geoff pushed the bottle over to his friend, and after a gulp Bowker

proceeded:

"We went to Spain, and remained there many months; and there it was

all very well. That slumbering country is even now but little haunted

by your infernal British tourist; but then scarcely any Englishman

came there. Such as we came across were all bachelors, your fine lad

can't stand the mule-travelling and the roughing it in the posadas; and

they either had not heard the story, or didn't see the propriety of

standing on any squeamishness, more especially when the acquaintance

was all to their advantage, and we got on capitally. Nelly had seen

nothing, poor child, having left school to be married; and all the

travel, and the picturesque old towns, and the peasantry, and the

Alhambra, and all the rest of it, made a sort of romantic dream for

her. But then old Van den Bosch got his divorce; and so soon as I had

heard of that, like a madman as I was, I determined to come back to

England. The money was running short, to be sure; but I had made no

end of sketches, and I might have sent them over and sold them; but I

wanted to get back. A man can't live on love alone; and I wanted to be

amongst my old set again, for the old gossip and the old _camaraderie_;

and so back we came. I took a little place out at Ealing, and then I

went into the old haunts, and saw the old fellows, and--for the first

time--so help me Heaven! for the first time I saw what I had done.

They cut me, sir, right and left! There were some of them--blackguards

who would have hobnobbed with Greenacre, if he'd stood the drink--who

accepted my invitations, and came Sunday after Sunday, and would have

eaten and drunk me out of house and home, if I'd have stood it; but

the best--the fellows I really cared about--pretty generally gave me

the cold shoulder. Some of them had married during my absence, and

of course they couldn't come; others were making their way in their

art, working under the patronage of big swells in the Academy, and

hoping for election there, and they daren't be mixed up with such a

notoriously black sheep as your William. I felt this, Geoff, old boy.

By George, it cut me to the heart; it took all the change out of me; it

made me low and hipped, and, I fear, sometimes savage. And I suppose I

showed it at home; for poor Nell seemed to change and wither from the

day of our return. She had her own troubles, poor darling, though she

thought she kept them to herself. In a case like that, Geoff, the women

get it much hotter than we do. There were no friends for her, no one

to whom she could tell her troubles. And then the story got known, and

people used to stare and nudge each other, and whisper as she passed.

The parson called when we first came, and was a good pleasant fellow;

but a fortnight afterwards he'd heard all about it, and grew purple

in the face as he looked straight over our heads when we met him. And

once a butcher, who had to be spoken to for cheating, cheeked her and

alluded to her story; but I think what I did to him prevented any

repetition of that kind of conduct. But I couldn't silence the whole

world by thrashing it, old fellow; and Nell drooped and withered under

all the misery--drooped and--died! And I--well, I became the graceless,

purposeless, spiritless brute you see me now!"

Mr. Bowker stopped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and

gave a great cough before finishing his drink; and then Geoffrey patted

him on the shoulder and said, "But you know how we all love you, old

friend; how that Charley Potts, and I, and Markham, and Wallis, and all

the fellows, would do anything for you."

Mr. Bowker gave his friend's hand a tight grip as he said, "I know,

Geoff; I know you boys are fond of your William but it wasn't to parade

my grief, or to cadge for sympathy from them, that I told you that

story. I had another motive."

"And that was--"

"To set myself up as an example and a warning to--any one who might

be going to take a similar step. You named yourself just now, Geoff,

amongst those who cared for me. Your William is a bit of a fogy, he

knows; but some of you do care for him, and you amongst them."

"Of course. You know that well enough."

"Then why not show your regard for your William, dear boy?

"Show my regard--how shall I show it?"

"By confiding in him, Geoff; by talking to him about yourself; telling

him your hopes and plans; asking him for some of that advice which

seeing a great many men and cities, and being a remarkably downy old

skittle, qualifies him to give. Why not confide in him, Geoff?"

"Confide in you? About what? Why on earth not speak out plainly at

once?"

"Well, well, I won't beat about the bush any longer. I daresay there's

nothing in it; but people talk and cackle so confoundedly, and, by

George, men--some men, at least--are quite as bad as women in that

line; and they say you're in love, Geoff; regularly hard hit--no chance

of recovery!"

"Do they?" said Geoff, flushing very red--"do they? Who are 'they,' by

the way?--not that it matters, a pack of gabbling fools! But suppose I

am, what then?"

"What then! Why, nothing then--only it's rather odd that you've never

told your William, whom you've known so long and so intimately, any

thing about it. Is that" (pointing to the picture) "a portrait of the

lady?"

"There--there is a reminiscence of her--her head and general style."

"Then your William would think that her head and general style must be

doosid good. Any sisters?"

"I--I think not."

"Are her people pleasant--do you get on with them?"

"I don't know them."

"Ah, Geoff, Geoff, why make me go on in this way? Don't you know me

well enough to be certain that I'm not asking all these questions for

impertinence and idle curiosity? Don't you see that I'm dragging bit by

bit out of you because I'm coming to the only point any of your friends

can care about? Is this girl a good girl; is she respectable; is she in

your own sphere of life; can you bring her home and tell the old lady

to throw her arms round her neck, and welcome her as a daughter? Can

you introduce her to that sweet sister of yours who was here when I

came in?"

There came over Geoffrey Ludlow's face a dark shadow such as William

Bowker had never seen there before. He did not speak nor turn his eyes,

but sat fixed and rigid as a statue.

"For God's sake think of all this, Geoff! Ive told you a thousand times

that you ought to be married; that there was no man more calculated to

make a woman happy, or to have his own happiness increased by a woman's

love. But then she must be of your own degree in life, and one of whom

you could be every where proud. I would not have you married to an ugly

woman or a drabby woman, or any thing that wasn't very nice; how much

less, then, to any one whom you would feel ashamed of, or who could

not be received by your dear ones at home! Geoff, dear old Geoff, for

heaven's sake think of all this before it is too late! Take warning by

my fatal error, and see what misery you would prepare for both of you."

Geoffrey Ludlow still sat in the same attitude. He made no reply for

some minutes; then he said, dreamily, "Yes--yes, you're quite right, of

course,--quite right. But I don't think we'll continue the conversation

now. Another time, Bowker, please--another time." Then he ceased, and

Mr. Bowker rose and pressed his hand, and took his departure. As he

closed the door behind him, that worthy said to himself: "Well, I've

done my duty, and I know I've done right; but it's very little of

Geoff's mutton that your William will cut, and very little of Geoff's

wine that your William will drink, if that marriage comes off. For of

course he'll tell her all I've said, and _won't_ she love your William!"

And for hours Geoffrey Ludlow sat before his easel, gazing at the

Scylla head, and revolving all the detail of Mr. Bowker's story in his

mind.

CHAPTER XI.

PLAYING THE FISH.

When did the giver of good, sound, unpalatable, wholesome advice

ever receive his due? Who does not possess, amongst the multitude of

acquaintances, a friend who says, "Such and such are my difficulties:

I come to you because I want advice;" and who, after having heard all

that, after a long struggle with yourself, you bring yourself to say,

wrings your hand, goes away thinking what an impertinent idiot you

are, and does exactly the opposite of all you have suggested? All men,

even the most self-opinionated and practical, are eager for advice.

None, even the most hesitating and diffident, take it, unless it agrees

with their own preconceived ideas. There are, of course, exceptions

by which this rule is proved; but there are two subjects on which no

man was ever yet known to take advice, and they are horses and women.

Depreciate your friend's purchase as delicately as Agag came unto

Saul; give every possible encomium to make and shape and breeding; but

hint, _per contra_, that the animal is scarcely up to his weight, or

that that cramped action looks like a possible blunder; suggest that

a little more slope in the shoulder, a little less cowiness in the

general build, might be desirable for riding purposes, and your friend

will smile, and shake his head, and canter away, convinced of the utter

shallowness of your equine knowledge. In the other matter it is much

worse. You must be very much indeed a man's friend if you can venture

to hint to him, even after his iterated requests for your honest candid

opinion, that the lady of his love is any thing but what he thinks

her. And though you iterate and reiterate, moralise as shrewdly as

Ecclesiasticus, bring chapter and verse to support your text, he must

be more or less than a man, and cast in very different clay from that

of which we poor ordinary mortals are composed, if he accepts one of

your arguments or gives way one atom before your elucidations.

Did William Bowker's forlorn story, commingled with his earnest

passionate appeal, weigh one scruple with Geoffrey Ludlow? Not one.

Geoff was taken aback by the story. There was a grand human interest

in that laying bare before him of a man's heart, and of two persons'

wasted lives, which aroused his interest and his sympathy, made him

ponder over what might have been, had the principal actors in the

drama been kept asunder, and sent him into a fine drowsy state of

metaphysical dubiety. But while Bowker was pointing his moral, Geoff

was merely turning over the various salient points which had adorned

his tale.

He certainly heard Bowker drawing a parallel between his own unhappy

passion and Geoff's regard for the original owner of that "Scylla

head;" but as the eminent speaker was arguing on hypothetical facts,

and drawing deductions from things of which he knew absolutely

nothing, too much reliance was not to be placed on his arguments. In

Bowker's case there had been a public scandal, a certain betrayal of

trust, which was the worst feature in the whole affair, a trial and

an _exposé_, and a denunciation of the--well, the world used hard

words--the seducer; which--though Bowker was the best fellow in the

world, and had obviously a dreadful time of it--was only according

to English custom. Now, in his own case, Margaret (he had already

accustomed himself to think of her as Margaret) had been victimised by

a scoundrel, and the blame--for he supposed blame would, at least in

the minds of very strait-laced people, attach to her--was mitigated

by the facts. Besides--and here was his great thought--nothing would

be known of her former history. Her life, so far as any one in his

set could possibly know any thing about it, began on the night when

he and Charley Potts found her in the street. She was destitute and

starving, granted; but there was nothing criminal in destitution and

starvation, which indeed would, in the eyes of a great many weak and

good-natured (the terms are synonymous) persons, bind a kind of romance

to the story. And as to all that had gone before, what of that? How was

any thing of that love ever to become known? This Leonard Brookfield,

an army swell, a man who, under any circumstances, was never likely

to come across them, or to be mixed up in Geoff's artist-circle, had

vanished, and with him vanished the whole dark part of the story.

Vanished for ever and aye! Margaret's life would begin to date from the

time when she became his wife, when he brought her home to----Ah, by

the way, what was that Bowker said about her worthiness to associate

with his mother and sister? Why not? He would tell them all about it.

They were good women, who fully appreciated the grand doctrine of

forgiveness; and yet--He hesitated; he knew his mother to be a most

excellent church-going woman, bearing her "cross" womanfully, not to

say rather flaunting it than otherwise; but he doubted whether she

would appreciate an introduction to a Magdalen, however penitent. To

subscribe to a charity for "those poor creatures;" to talk pleasantly

and condescendingly to them, and to leave them a tract on visiting

a "Home" or a "Refuge," is one thing; to take them to your heart as

daughters-in-law is another. And his sister! Well, young girls didn't

understand this kind of thing, and would put a false construction on

it, and were always chattering, and a great deal of harm might be done

by Til's want of reticence; and so, perhaps, the best thing to be done

was to hold his tongue, decline to answer any questions about former

life, and leave matters to take their course. He had already arrived

at that state of mind that he felt, if any disagreements arose, he

was perfectly ready to leave mother and sister, and cleave to his

wife--that was to be.

So Geoffrey Ludlow, tossing like a reed upon the waters, but ever, like

the same reed, drifting with the resistless current of his will, made

up his mind; and all the sage experience of William Bowker, illustrated

by the story of his life, failed in altering his determination. It is

questionable whether a younger man might not have been swayed by, or

frightened at, the council given to him. Youth is impressible in all

ways; and however people may talk of the headstrong passion of youth,

it is clear that--nowadays at least--there is a certain amount of

selfish forethought mingled with the heat and fervour; that love--like

the measles--though innocuo us in youth, is very dangerous when

taken in middle life; and Geoffrey Ludlow was as weak, and withal as

stubborn, an in-patient, as ever caught the disease.

And yet?--and yet?--was the chain so strong, were the links already

so well riveted, as to defy every effort to break them? Or, in truth,

was it that the effort was wanting? An infatuation for a woman had

been painted in very black shadows by William Bowker; but it was a

great question to Geoff whether there was not infinite pleasure in the

mere fact of being infatuated. Since he had seen Margaret Dacre--at

all events, since he had been fascinated by her--not merely was he a

different man, so far as she was concerned, but all life was to him a

different and infinitely more pleasurable thing. That strange doubting

and hesitation which had been his bane through life seemed, if not

to have entirely vanished, at all events to be greatly modified; and

he had recently, in one or two matters, shown a decision which had

astonished the members of his little household. He felt that he had

at last--what he had wanted all through his life--a purpose; he felt

that there was something for him to live for; that by his love he had

learned something that he had never known before; that his soul was

opened, and the whole aspect of nature intensified and beautified; that

he might have said with Maud's lover in that exquisite poem of the

Laureate's, which so few really appreciate--

"It seems that I am happy, that to me A livelier emerald twinkles in

the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea."

Then he sat down at his easel again, and worked away at the Scylla

head, which came out grandly, and soon grew all a-glow with Margaret

Dacre's peculiar expression; and then, after contemplating it long and

lovingly, the desire to see the original came madly upon him, and he

threw down his palette and brushes, and went out.

He walked straight to Mrs. Flexor's, and, on his knocking, the door was

opened to him by that worthy dame, who announced to him, with awful

solemnity, that he'd "find a change upstairs."

"A change!" cried Geoffrey, his heart thumping audibly, and his cheek

blanched; "a change!"

"O, nothin' serious, Mr. Ludlows; but she have been a worritin'

herself, poor lamb, and a cryin' her very eyes out. But what it is I

can't make out, though statin' put your trust in one where trust is

doo, continual."

"I don't follow you yet, Mrs. Flexor. Your lodger has been in low

spirits--is that it?"

"Sperrits isn't the name for it, Mr. Ludlows, when downer than dumps is

what one would express. As queer as Dick's hatband have she been ever

since you went away yesterday; and I says to her at tea last evening--"

"I can see her, I suppose?"

"Of course you can, sir; which all I was doing was to prepare you

for the--" but here Mrs. Flexor, who had apparently taken something

stronger than usual with her dinner, broke down and became inarticulate.

Geoffrey pushed past her, and, knocking at the parlour-door, entered

at once. He found Margaret standing, with her arms on the mantelshelf,

surveying herself in the wretched little scrap of looking-glass which

adorned the wall. Her hair was arranged in two large full bands, her

eyes were swollen, and her face was blurred and marked by tears. She

did not turn round at the opening of the door, nor, indeed, until she

had raised her head and seen in the glass Geoff's reflection; even then

she moved languidly, as though in pain, and her hand, when she placed

it in his, was dry with burning heat.

"That chattering idiot down stairs was right after all," said Geoff,

looking alarmedly at her; "you are ill?"

"No," she said, with a faint smile; "not ill, at all events not now.

I have been rather weak and silly; but I did not expect you yet. I

intended to remove all traces of such folly by the time you came. It

was fit I should, as I want to talk to you most seriously and soberly."

"Do we not always talk so? did we not the last time I was

here--yesterday?"

"Well, generally, perhaps; but not the last time--not yesterday. If I

could have thought so, I should have spared myself a night of agony and

a morning of remorse."

Geoff's face grew clouded.

"I am sorry for your agony, but much more sorry for your remorse, Miss

Dacre," said he.

"Ah, Mr. Ludlow," cried Margaret, passionately, "don't _you_ be angry

with me; don't _you_ speak to me harshly, or I shall give way all

together! O, I watched every change of your face; and I saw what you

thought at once; but indeed, indeed it is not so. My remorse is not

for having told you all that I did yesterday; for what else could I do

to you who had been to me what you had? My remorse was for what I had

done--not for what I had said--for the wretched folly which prompted me

to yield to a wheedling tongue, and so ruin myself for ever."

Her tears burst forth again as she said this, and she stamped her foot

upon the ground.

"Ruin you for ever, Margaret!" said Geoffrey, stealing his arm round

her waist as she still stood by the mantelshelf; "O no, not ruin you,

dearest Margaret--"

"Ah, Mr. Ludlow," she interrupted, neither withdrawing from nor

yielding to his arm, "have I not reason to say ruin? Can I fail to see

that you have taken an interest in me which--which--"

"Which nothing you have told me can alter--which I shall preserve,

please God," said Geoff, in all simplicity and sincerity, "to the end

of my life."

She looked at him as he said these words with a fixed regard, half of

wonder, half of real unfeigned earnest admiration.

"I--I'm a very bad hand at talking, Margaret, and know I ought to say a

great deal for which I can't find words. You see," he continued, with a

grave smile, "I'm not a young man now, and I suppose one finds it more

difficult to express oneself about--about such matters. But I'm going

to ask you--to--to share my lot--to be my wife!"

Her heart gave one great bound within her breast, and her face was

paler than ever, as she said:

"Your wife! your wife! Do you know what you are saying, Mr. Ludlow? or

is it I who, as the worldling, must point out to you--"

"I know all," said Geoffrey, raising his hand deprecatingly; but she

would not be silenced.

"I must point out to you what you would bring upon yourself--what you

would have to endure. The story of my life is known to you and to you

alone; not another living soul has ever heard it. My mother died while

I was in Italy; and of--the other person--nothing has ever been heard

since his flight. So far, then, I do not fear that my--my shame--we

will use the accepted term--would be flung in your teeth, or that you

would be made to wince under any thing that might be said about me. But

you would know the facts yourself; you could not hide them from your

own heart; they would be ever present to you; and in introducing me to

your friends, your relatives, if you have any, you would feel that--"

"I don't think we need go into that, Margaret. I see how right and how

honourable are your motives for saying all this; but I have thought it

over, and do not attach one grain of importance to it. If you say 'yes'

to me, we shall live for ourselves, and with a very few friends who

will appreciate us for ourselves. Ah, I was going to say that to you.

I'm not rich, Margaret, and your life would, I'm afraid, be dull. A

small income and a small house, and--"

"It would be my home, and I should have you;" and for the first time

during the interview she gave him one of her long dreamy looks out of

her half-shut eyes.

"Then you will say 'yes,' dearest?" asked Geoff passionately.

"Ah, how can I refuse! how can I deny myself such happiness as you hold

out to me after the misery I have zone through!"

"Ah, darling, you shall forget that--"

"But you must not act rashly--must not do in a moment what you would

repent your life long. Take a week for consideration. Go over every

thing in your mind, and then come back to me and tell me the result."

"I know it now. O, don't hesitate, Margaret; don't let me wait the

horrid week!"

"It is right, and so we will do it. It will be more tedious to me than

to you, my--my Geoffrey."

Ah, how caressingly she spoke, and what a look of love and passion

glowed in her deep-violet eyes!

"And I am not to see you during this week?"

"No; you shall be free from whatever little influence my presence may

possess. You shall go now. Goodbye."

"God bless you, my darling!" He bent down and kissed her upturned

mouth, then was gone. She looked after him wistfully; then after some

time said softly to herself: "I did not believe there lived so good a

man."

CHAPTER XII.

UNDER THE HARROW.

Mr. Bowker was not the only one of Geoffrey Ludlow's friends to whom

that gentleman's intentions towards the lodger at Flexor's occasioned

much troubled thought. Charley Potts regarded his friend's intimacy

in that quarter with any thing but satisfaction; and an enormous

amount of bird's-eye tobacco was consumed by that rising young artist

in solemn cogitation over what was best to be done in the matter.

For though Geoffrey had reposed no confidence in his friend, and,

indeed, had never called upon him, and abstained as much as possible

from meeting him since the night of the adventure outside the Titian

Sketching-Club, yet Mr. Potts was pretty accurately informed of the

state of affairs, through the medium of Mr. Flexor, then perpetually

sitting for the final touches to Gil Bias; and having a tolerable

acquaintance with human nature,--or being, as he metaphorically

expressed it, "able to reckon how many blue beans made five,"--Mr.

Potts was enabled to arrive at a pretty accurate idea of how affairs

stood in Little Flotsam Street. And affairs, as they existed in Little

Flotsam Street, were by no means satisfactory to Mr. Charles Potts.

Had it been a year ago, he would have cared but little about it. A

man of the world, accustomed to take things as they were, without the

remotest idea of ever setting himself up to correct abuses, or protest

against a habitude of being not strictly in accordance with the views

of the most strait-laced, Charley Potts had floated down the stream

of life objecting to nothing, objected to by none. There were fifty

ladies of his acquaintance, passing as the wives of fifty men of his

acquaintance, pleasant genial creatures, capital punch-mixers,--women

in whose presence you might wear your hat, smoke, talk slang, chaff,

and sing; women who knew all the art-gossip, and entered into it;

whom one could take to the Derby, or who would be delighted with a

cheap-veal-and-ham-pie, beer-in-a-stone-jar, and bottle-of-hot-sherry

picnic in Bushey Park,--the copy of whose marriage-licenses Charley

never expected to see. It was nothing to him, he used to say. It might

or it might not be; but he didn't think that Joe's punch would be any

the stronger, or Tom's weeds any the better, or Bill's barytone voice

one atom more tuneful and chirpy, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had

given out the bans and performed the ceremony for the lot. There was

in it, he thought, a glorious phase of the _vie de Bohême_, a scorn of

the respectable conventionalities of society, a freedom of thought and

action possessing a peculiar charm of their own; and he looked upon the

persons who married and settled, and paid taxes and tradesmen's bills,

and had children, and went to bed before morning, and didn't smoke clay

pipes and sit in their shirt-sleeves, with that softened pity with

which the man bound for Epsom Downs regards the City clerk going to

business on the Clapham omnibus.

But within the last few months Mr. Potts's ideas had very considerably

changed. It was not because he had attained the venerable age of

thirty, though he was at first inclined to ascribe the alteration to

that; it was not that his appetite for fun and pleasure had lost any

of its keenness, nor that he had become "awakened," or "enlightened,"

or subjected to any of the preposterous revival influences of the

day. It was simply that he had, in the course of his intimacy with

Geoffrey Ludlow, seen a great deal of Geoffrey Ludlow's sister, Til;

and that the result of his acquaintance with that young lady was the

entire change of his ideas on various most important points. It was

astonishing, its effect on him: how, after an evening at Mrs. Ludlow's

tea-table--presided over, of course, by Miss Til--Charley Potts, going

somewhere out to supper among his old set, suddenly had his eyes

opened to Louie's blackened eyelids and Bella's painted cheeks; how

Georgie's _h_-slips smote with tenfold horror on his ear, and Carry's

cigarette-smoking made him wince with disgust. He had seen all these

things before, and rather liked them; it was the contrast that induced

the new feeling. Ah, those preachers and pedants,--well-meaning,

right-thinking men,--how utterly futile are the means which they use

for compassing their ends! In these sceptical times, their pulpit

denunciations, their frightful stories of wrath to come, are received

with polite shoulder-shrugs and grins of incredulity; their twopence

coloured pictures of the Scarlet Woman, their time-worn renderings of

the street-wanderer, are sneered at as utterly fictitious and untrue;

and meanwhile detached villas in St. John's Wood, and first-floors

in quiet Pimlico streets, command the most preposterous rents. Young

men will of course be young men; but the period of young-man-ism in

that sense narrows and contracts every year. The ranks of her Scarlet

Ladyship's army are now filled with very young boys who do not know

any better, or elderly men who cannot get into the new groove, and

who still think that to be gentlemanly it is necessary to be immoral.

Those writers who complain of the "levelling" tone of society, and

the "fast" manners of our young ladies, scarcely reflect upon the

improved morality of the age. Our girls--all the outcry about fastness

and selling themselves for money notwithstanding--are as good and as

domestic as when formed under the literary auspices of Mrs. Chapone;

and--granting the existence of Casinos and Anonymas--our young men are

infinitely more wholesome than the class for whose instruction Philip

Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, penned his delicious letters.

So Mr. Charles Potts, glowing with newly-awakened ideas of

respectability, began to think that, after all, the _vie de Bohême_ was

perhaps a mistake, and not equal, in the average amount of happiness

derived from it, to the _vie de_ Camden Town. He began to think that to

pay rent and taxes and tradesmen's bills was very likely no dearer, and

certainly more satisfactory, than to invest in pensions for cast-off

mistresses and provisions for illegitimate children. He began to think,

in fact, that a snug little house in the suburbs, with his own Lares

and Penates about him, and Miss Matilda Ludlow, now looking over his

shoulder and encouraging him at his work, now confronting him at the

domestic dinner-table, was about the pleasantest thing which his fancy

could conjure up in his then frame of mind.

Thinking all this, devoutly hoping it might so fall out, and being,

like most converts, infinitely more rabid in the cause of Virtue than

those who had served her with tolerable fidelity for a series of years,

Mr. Charley Potts heard with a dreadful amount of alarm and amazement

of Geoffrey Ludlow's close connection with a person whose antecedents

were not comeatable and siftable by a local committee of Grundys. A

year ago, and Charley would have laughed the whole business to scorn;

insisted that every man had a right to do as he liked; slashed at

the doubters; mocked their shaking heads and raised shoulders and

taken no heed of any thing that might have been sad. But matters were

different now. Not merely was Charley a recruit in the Grundy ranks,

having pinned the Grundy colours in his coat, and subscribed to the

Grundy oath; but the person about to be brought before the Grundy

_Fehmgericht_, or court-marshal, was one in whom, should his hopes be

realised, he would have the greatest interest. Though he had never

dared to express his hopes, though he had not the smallest actual

foundation for his little air-castle, Charles Potts naturally and

honestly regarded Matilda Ludlow as the purest and most honourable of

her sex--as does every young fellow regard the girl he loves; and the

idea that she should be associated, or intimately connected, with any

one under a moral taint, was to him terrible and loathsome.

The moral taint, mind, was all hypothetical. Charles Potts had not

heard one syllable of Margaret Dacre's history, had been told nothing

about it, knew nothing of her except that he and Geoffrey had saved her

from starvation in the streets. But when people go in for the public

profession of virtue, it is astonishing to find how quickly they listen

to reports of the shortcomings and backslidings of those who are not

professedly in the same category. It seemed a bit of fatalism too,

that this acquaintance should have occurred immediately on Geoffrey's

selling his picture for a large sum to Mr. Stompff. Had he not done

this, there is no doubt that the other thing would have been heard

of by few, noticed by none; but in art, as in literature, and indeed

in most other professions, no crime is so heavily visited as that of

being successful. It is the sale of your picture, or the success of

your novel, that first makes people find out how you steal from other

people, how your characters are mere reproductions of your own personal

friends,--for which you ought to be shunned,--how laboured is your

pathos, and how poor your jokes. It is the repetition of your success

that induces the criticism; not merely that you are a singular instance

of the badness of the public taste, but that you have a red nose, a

decided cast in one eye, and that undoubtedly your grandmother had

hard labour for stealing a clock. Geoff Ludlow the struggling might

have done as he liked without comment; on Geoff Ludlow the possessor

of unlimited commissions from the great Stompff it was meet that every

vial of virtuous wrath should be poured.

Although Charles Potts knew the loquacity of Mr. Flexor,--the story

of Geoff's adventure and fascination had gone the round of the

studios,--he did not think how much of what had occurred, or what was

likely to occur, was actually known, inasmuch as that most men, knowing

the close intimacy existing between him and Ludlow, had the decency to

hold their tongues in his presence. But one day he heard a good deal

more than every thing. He was painting on a fancy head which he called

"Diana Vernon," but which, in truth, was merely a portrait of Miss

Matilda Ludlow very slightly idealised (the "Gil Blas" had been sent

for acceptance or rejection by the Academy Committee), and Bowker was

sitting by smoking a sympathetic pipe, when there came a sharp tug at

the bell, and Bowker, getting up to open the door, returned with a very

rueful countenance, closely followed by little Tidd. Now little Tidd,

though small in stature, was a great ruffian. A soured, disappointed

little wretch himself, he made it the business of his life to go about

maligning every one who was successful, and endeavouring, when he

came across them personally, to put them out of conceit by hints and

innuendoes. He was a nasty-looking little man, with an always grimy

face and hands, a bald head, and a frizzled beard. He had a great

savage mouth with yellow tusks at either end of it; and he gave you,

generally, the sort of notion of a man that you would rather not drink

after. He had been contemporary with Geoffrey Ludlow at the Academy,

and had been used to say very frankly to him and others, "When I become

a great man, as I'm sure to do, I shall cut all you chaps;" and he

meant it. But years had passed, and Tidd had not become a great man

yet; on the contrary, he had subsided from yards of high-art canvas

into portrait-painting, and at that he seemed likely to remain.

"Well, how do _you_ do, Potts?" said Mr. Tidd. "I said 'How do you

do?' to our friend Mr. Bowker at the door. Looks well, don't he? His

troubles seem to sit lightly on him." Here Mr. Bowker growled a bad

word, and seemed as if about to spring upon the speaker.

"And what's this you're doing, Potts? A charming head! acharming--n-no!

not quite so charming when you get close to it; nose a little out of

drawing, and--rather spotty, eh? What do you say, Mr. Bowker?"

"I say, Mr. Tidd, that if you could paint like that, you'd give one of

your ears."

"Ah, yes--well, that's not complimentary, but--soured, poor man; sad

affair! Yes, well! you've sent your Gil Blas to the Academy, I suppose,

Potts?"

"O yes; he's there, sir; very likely at this moment being held up by a

carpenter before the Fatal Three."

"Ah! don't be surprised at its being kicked out."

"I don't intend to be."

"That's right; they're sending them back in shoals this year, I'm

told--in shoals. Have you heard any thing about the pictures?"

"Nothing, except that Landseer's got something stunning."

"Landseer, ah!" said Mr. Tidd. "When I think of that man, and the

prices he gets, my blood boils, sir--boils! That the British public

should care about and pay for a lot of stupid horses and cattle-pieces,

and be indifferent to real art, is--well, never mind!" and Mr. Tidd

gave himself a great blow in the chest, and asked, "What else?"

"Nothing else--O yes! I heard from Rushworth, who's on the Council,

you know, that they had been tremendously struck by Geoff Ludlow's

pictures, and that one or two more of the same sort are safe to make

him an Associate."

"What!" said Mr. Tidd, eagerly biting his nails. "What!--an Associate!

Geoffrey Ludlow an Associate!"

"Ah, that seems strange to you, don't it, Tidd?" said Bowker, speaking

for the first time. "I recollect you and Geoff together drawing from

the life. You were going to do every thing in those days, Tidd; and old

Geoff was as quiet and as modest as--as he is now. It's the old case of

the hare and the tortoise; and you're the hare, Tidd;--though, to look

at you," added Mr. Bowker under his breath, "you're a d--d sight more

like the tortoise, by Jove!"

"Geoffrey Ludlow an Associate!" repeated Mr. Tidd, ignoring Mr.

Bowker's remark, and still greedily biting his nails. "Well, I should

hardly have thought that; though you can't tell what they won't do down

in that infernal place in Trafalgar Square. Theyve treated me badly

enough; and it's quite like them to make a pet of him."

"How have they treated you badly, Tidd?" asked Potts, in the hope of

turning the conversation away from Ludlow and his doings.

"How!" screamed Tidd; "in a thousand ways! Theyve a personal hatred

of me, sir--that's what they have! Ive tried every dodge and painted

in every school, and they won't have me. The year after Smith made a

hit with that miserable picture 'Measuring Heights,' from the _Vicar

of Wakefield_, I sent in 'Mr. Burchell cries Fudge!'--kicked out!

The year after, Mr. Ford got great praise for his wretched daub of

'Dr. Johnson reading Goldsmith's Manuscript.' I sent in 'Goldsmith,

Johnson, and Bozzy at the Mitre Tavern'--kicked out!--a glorious bit

of humour, in which I'd represented all three in different stages of

drunkenness--kicked out!"

"I suppose you've not been used worse than most of us, Tidd," growled

Mr. Bowker. "She's an unjust stepmother, is the R.A. of A. But she

snubs pretty nearly every body alike."

"Not at all!" said Tidd. "Here's this Ludlow--"

"What of him?" interposed Potts quickly.

"Can any one say that his painting is--ah, well! poor devil! it's no

good saying any thing more about him; he'll have quite enough to bear

on his own shoulders soon."

"What, when he's an Associate!" said Bowker, who inwardly was highly

delighted at Tidd's evident rage.

"Associate!--stuff! I mean when he's married."

"Married? Is Ludlow going to be married?"

"Of course he is. Haven't you heard it? it's all over town." And indeed

it would have been strange if the story had not permeated all those

parts of the town which Mr. Tidd visited, as he himself had laboured

energetically for its circulation. "It's all over town--O, a horrible

thing! horrible thing!"

Bowker looked across at Charley Potts, who said, "What do you mean by a

horrible thing, Tidd? Speak out and tell us; don't be hinting in that

way."

"Well, then, Ludlow's going to marry some dreadful bad woman. O, it's a

fact; I know all about it. Ludlow was coming home from a dinner-party

one night, and he saw this woman, who was drunk, nearly run over by an

omnibus at the Regent Circus. He rushed into the road, and pulled her

out; and finding she was so drunk she couldn't speak, he got a room for

her at Flexor's and took her there, and has been to see her every day

since; and at last he's so madly in love with her that he's going to

marry her."

"Ah!" said Mr. Bowker; "who is she? Where did she come from?"

"Nobody knows where she came from; but she's a reg'lar bad 'un,--as

common as dirt. Pity too, ain't it? for Ive heard Ludlow's mother is a

nice old lady, and Ive seen his sister, who's stunnin'!" and Mr. Tidd

winked his eye.

This last proceeding finished Charley Potts, and caused his wrath,

which had been long simmering, to boil over. "Look here, Mr. Tidd!" he

burst forth; "that story about Geoff Ludlow is all lies--all lies, do

you hear! And if I find that you're going about spreading it, or if you

ever mention Miss Ludlow as you did just now, I'll break your infernal

neck for you!"

"Mr. Potts!" said Tidd,--"Mr. Potts, such language! Mr. Bowker, did you

hear what he said?"

"I did," growled old Bowker over his pipe; "and from what I know of

him, I should think he was deuced likely to do it."

Mr. Tidd seemed to be of the same opinion, for he moved towards the

door, and slunk out, muttering ominously.

"There's a scoundrel for you!" said Charley, when the door shut

behind the retreating Tidd; "there's a ruffian for you! Ive not the

least doubt that vagabond got a sort of foundation smattering from

that blabbing Flexor, and invented all that about the omnibus and the

drunken state and the rest of it himself. If that story gets noised

about, it will do Geoff harm."

"Of course it will," said Bowker; "and that's just what Tidd wants.

However, I think your threat of breaking his neck has stopped that

little brute's tongue. There are some fellows, by Jove! who'll go

on lying and libelling you, and who are only checked by the idea of

getting a licking, when they shut up like telescopes. I don't know

what's to be done about Geoff. He seems thoroughly determined and

infatuated."

"I can't understand it."

"_I_ can," said old Bowker, sadly; "if she's any thing like the head

he's painted in his second picture--and I think from his manner it must

be deuced like her--I can understand a man's doing any thing for such a

woman. Did she strike you as being very lovely?"

"I couldn't see much of her that night, and she was deadly white and

ill; but I didn't think her as good-looking as--some that I know."

"Geoff ought to know about this story that's afloat."

"I think he ought," said Charley. "I'll walk up to his place in a day

or two, and see him about it."

"See _him?_" said Bowker. "Ah, all right! Yesterday was not your

William's natal day."

CHAPTER XIII.

AT THE PRIVATE VIEW.

The grand epoch of the artistic year had arrived; the tremendous

Fehmgericht--appointed to decide on the merits of some hundreds of

struggling men, to stamp their efforts with approval or to blight them

with rejection--had issued their sentence. The Hanging-Committee had

gone through their labours and eaten their dinners; every inch of space

on the walls in Trafalgar Square was duly covered; the successful men

had received intimation of the "varnishing day," and to the rejected

had been despatched a comforting missive, stating that the amount

of space at the command of the Academy was so small, that, sooner

than place their works in an objectionable position, the Council had

determined to ask for their withdrawal. Out of this ordeal Geoffrey

Ludlow had come splendidly. There had always been a notion that he

would "do something;" but he had delayed so long--near the mark, but

never reaching it--that the original belief in his talents had nearly

faded out. Now, when realisation came, it came with tenfold force. The

old boys--men of accepted name and fame--rejoiced with extra delight

in his success because it was one in their own line, and without any

giving in to the doctrines of the new school, which they hated with all

their hearts. They liked the "Sic vos non vobis" best (for Geoffrey had

sternly held to his title, and refused all Mr. Stompff's entreaties

to give it a more popular character); they looked upon it as a more

thoroughly legitimate piece of work. They allowed the excellences of

the "Scylla and Charybdis," and, indeed, some of them were honest

enough to prefer it, as a bit of real excellence in painting; but

others objected to the pre-Raphaelite tendency to exalt the white face

and the dead-gold hair into a realisation of beauty. But all were

agreed that Geoffrey Ludlow had taken the grand step which was always

anticipated from him, and that he was, out and away, the most promising

man of the day: So Geoff was hung on the line, and received letters

from half-a-dozen great names congratulating him on his success, and

was in the seventh heaven of happiness, principally from the fact that

in all this he saw a prospect of excellent revenue, of the acquisition

of money and honour to be shared with a person then resident in Mr.

Flexor's lodgings, soon to be mistress of his own home.

The kind Fates had also been propitious to Mr. Charles Potts, whose

picture of "Gil Blas and the Archbishop" had been well placed in the

North Room. Mr. Tidd's "Boadicea in her Chariot," ten feet by six, had

been rejected; but his portrait of W. Bagglehole, Esq., vestry-clerk of

St. Wabash, Little Britain, looked down from the ceiling of the large

room and terrified the beholders.

So at length arrived that grand day of the year to the Academicians,

when they bid certain privileged persons to the private view of the

pictures previous to their public exhibition. The _profanum vulgus_,

who are odi'd and arceo'd, pine in vain hope of obtaining a ticket for

this great occasion. The public press, the members of the Legislature

carefully sifted, a set of old dowagers who never bought a sketch, and

who scarcely know a picture from a pipkin, and a few distinguished

artists,--these are the happy persons who are invited to enter the

sacred precincts on this eventful day. Geoffrey Ludlow never had been

inside the walls on such an occasion--never expected to be; but on

the evening before, as he was sitting in his studio smoking a pipe

and thinking that within twenty-four hours he would have Margaret's

final decision, looking back over his short acquaintance with her in

wonder, looking forward to his future life with her in hope, when a

mail-phaeton dashed up to the door, and in the strident tones, "Catch

hold, young 'un," shouted to the groom, Geoff recognised the voice of

Mr. Stompff, and looking out saw that great capitalist descending from

the vehicle.

"Hallo, Ludlow!" said Mr. Stompff, entering the studio; "how are you?

Quiet pipe after the day's grind? That's your sort! What will I take,

you were going to say? Well, I think a little drop of sherry, if you've

got it pale and dry,--as, being a man of taste, of course you have.

Well, those duffers at the Academy have hung you well, you see! Of

course they have. You know how that's done, of course?"

"I had hoped that the--" Geoff began to stutter directly it became a

personal question with him--"that the--I was going to say that the

pictures were good enough to--"

"Pictures good enough!--all stuff! pickles! The pictures are good--no

use in denying that, and it would be deuced stupid in me, whove

bought 'em! But that's not why they're so well hung. My men all on

the Hanging-Committee--_twiggez-vous?_ Last year there were two of

Caniche's men, and a horrible fellow who paints religious dodges, which

no one buys: not one of my men on the line, and half of them turned out

I determined to set that right this year, and Ive done it. Just you

look where Caniche's men are to-morrow, that's all!"

"To-morrow?"

"O, ah! that's what brought me here; I forgot to tell you. Here's a

ticket for the private view. I think you ought to be there,--show

yourself, you know, and that kind of thing. And look here: if you see

me pointing you out to people, don't you be offended. Ive lived longer

in the world than you, and I know what's what. Besides, you're part

of my establishment just now, and I know the way to work the oracle.

So don't mind it, that's all. Very decent glass of sherry, Ludlow! I

say--excuse me, but if you _could_ wear a white waistcoat to-morrow, I

think I should like it. English gentleman, you know, and all that! Some

of Caniche's fellows are very seedy-looking duffers."

Geoff smiled, took the ticket, and promised to come, terribly

uncomfortable at the prospect of notoriety which Mr. Stompff had opened

for him. But that worthy had not done with him yet.

"After it's all over," said he, "you must come and dine with me at

Blackwall. Regular business of mine, sir. I take down my men and two

or three of the newspaper chaps, after the private view, and give 'em

as good a dinner as money can buy. No stint! I say to Lovegrove, 'You

know me! The best, and damn the expense!' and Lovegrove does it, and

it's all right! It would be difficult for a fellow to pitch into any

of my men with a recollection of my Moselle about him, and a hope that

it'll come again next year, eh? Well--won't detain you now; see you

to-morrow; and don't forget the dinner."

Do you not know this kind of man, and does he not permeate English

society?--this coarse ruffian, whose apparent good-nature disarms your

nascent wrath, and yet whose good-nature you know to be merely vulgar

ostentatious self-assertion under the guise of _bonhomie_. I take the

character I have drawn, but I declare he belongs to all classes. I

have seen him as publisher to author, as attorney to young barrister,

as patron to struggler generally. Geoffrey Ludlow shrank before him,

but shrank in his old feeble hesitating way; he had not the pluck to

shake off the yoke, and bid his employer go to the devil. It was a new

phase of life for him--a phase which promised competence at a time

when competence was required; which, moreover, rid him of any doubt or

anxiety about the destination of his labour, which to a man of Ludlow's

temperament was all in all. How many of us are there who will sell such

wares as Providence has given us the power of producing at a much less

rate than we could otherwise obtain for them, and to most objectionable

people, so long as we are enabled to look for and to get a certain

price, and are absorbed from the ignominy of haggling, even though by

that haggling we should be tenfold enriched! So Geoffrey Ludlow took

Mr. Stompff's ticket, and gave him his pale sherry, and promised to

dine with him, and bowed him out; and then went back into his studio

and lit a fresh pipe and sat down to think calmly over all that was

about to befall him.

What came into his mind first? His love, of course. There is no man,

as yet unanchored in the calm haven of marriage, who amidst contending

perplexities does not first think of what storms and shoals beset his

progress in that course. And who, so long as there he can see a bit

of blue sky, a tolerably clear passage, does not, to a great extent,

ignore the black clouds which he sees banking up to windward, the

heavy swell crested with a thin, dangerous, white line of wave, which

threatens his fortunes in another direction. Here Geoffrey Ludlow

thought himself tolerably secure. Margaret had told him all her story,

had made the worst of it, and had left him to act on her confession.

Did she love him? That was a difficult question for a man of Geoff's

diffidence to judge. But he thought he might unhesitatingly answer it

in the affirmative. It was her own proposition that nothing should be

done hurriedly; that he should take the week to calmly reflect over the

position, and see whether he held by his first avowal. And to-morrow

the week would be at an end, and he would have the right to ask for her

decision.

That decision, if favourable, would at once settle his plans, and

necessitate an immediate communication to his mother. This was a phase

of the subject which Geoffrey characteristically had ignored, put by,

and refrained from thinking of as long as possible. But now there was

no help for it. Under any circumstances he would have endeavoured, on

marrying, to set up a separate establishment for himself; but situated

as he was, with Margaret Dacre as his intended wife, he saw that such

a step was inevitable. For though he loved his mother with all his

heart, he was not blind to her weaknesses and he knew that the "cross"

would never be more triumphantly brought forward, or more loudly

complained of, than when it took the form of a daughter-in-law,--a

daughter-in-law, moreover, whose antecedents were not held up for

the old lady's scrutinising inspection. And here, perhaps, was the

greatest tribute to the weird influence of the dead-gold hair, the

pallid face, and the deep-violet eyes. A year ago, and Geoff Ludlow

would have told you that nothing could ever have made him alter his

then style of life. It had continued too long, he would have told you;

he had settled down into a certain state of routine, living with the

old lady and Til: they understood his ways and wishes, and he thought

he should never change. And Mrs. Ludlow used to say that Geoffrey would

never marry now; he did not care for young chits of girls, who were

all giggle and nonsense, my dear; a man at his time of life looked

for something more than that, and where it was to come from she, for

one, did not know. Miss Matilda had indeed different views on the

subject; she thought that dear old Geoff would marry, but that it

would probably come about in this way. Some lovely female member of

the aristocracy, to whom Geoff had given drawing-lessons, or who had

seen his pictures, and become imbued with the spirit of poetry in them,

would say to her father, the haughty earl, "I pine for him; I cannot

live without him;" and to save his darling child's health, the earl

would give his consent, and bestow upon the happy couple estates of the

annual value of twenty thousand pounds. But then you see Miss Matilda

Ludlow was given to novel-reading, and though perfectly practical and

unromantic as regards herself and her career, was apt to look upon all

appertaining to her brother, whom she adored, through a surrounding

halo of circulating-library.

How this great intelligence would, then, be received by his

home-tenants set Geoff thinking after Stompff's departure, and between

the puff of his pipe he turned the subject hither and thither in

his mind, and proposed to himself all kinds of ways for meeting the

difficulty; none of which, on reconsideration, appearing practicable

or judicious, he reverted to an old and favourite plan of his, that of

postponing any further deliberation until the next day, when, as he

argued with himself; he would have "slept upon it"--a most valuable

result when the subject is systematically ignored up to the time of

going to sleep, and after the hour of waking--he would have been to the

private view at the Academy--which had, of course, an immense deal to

do with it--and he would have received the final decision from Margaret

Dacre. O yes, it was useless to think any more of it that night. And

fully persuaded of this, Geoff turned in and fell fast asleep.

"And there won't be a more gentlemanly-looking man in the rooms than

our dear old Geoff!"

"Stuff, Til! don't be absurd!"

"No, I mean it; and you know it too, you vain old thing; else why are

you perpetually looking in the glass?"

"No, but--Til, nonsense!--I suppose I'm all right, eh?"

"All right!--you're charming, Geoff! I never saw you such a--I can't

help it you know--swell before! Don't frown, Geoff; there's no other

word that expresses it. One would think you were going to meet a lady

there. Does the Queen go, or any of the young princesses?"

"How can you be so ridiculous, Til! Now, goodbye;" and Geoff gave his

sister a hearty kiss, and started off. Miss Matilda was right; he did

look perfectly gentlemanly in his dark-blue coat, white waistcoat, and

small-check trousers. Nature, which certainly had denied him personal

beauty or regularity of feature, had given him two or three marks

of distinction: his height, his bright earnest eyes, and a certain

indefinable odd expression, different from the ordinary ruck of

people--an expression which attracted attention, and invariably made

people ask who he was.

It was three o'clock before Geoff arrived at the Academy, and the

rooms were crowded. The scene was new to him, and he stared round in

astonishment at the brilliancy of the _toilettes_, and what Charley

Potts would have called the "air of swelldom" which pervaded the place.

It is scarcely necessary to say that his first act was to glance at

the Catalogue to see where his pictures were placed; his second, to

proceed to them to see how they looked on the walls. Round each was a

little host of eager inspectors, and from what Geoff caught of their

conversation, the verdict was entirely favourable. But he was not long

left in doubt. As he was looking on, his arm was seized by Mr. Stompff,

who, scarcely waiting to carry him out of earshot, began, "Well! you've

done it up brown this time, my man, and no flies! Your pictures have

woke 'em up. They're talking of nothing else. Ive sold 'em both. Lord

Everton--that's him over there: little man with a double eyeglass,

brown coat and high velvet collar--he's bought the 'sic wos;' and Mr.

Shirtings of Manchester's got the other. The price has been good, sir;

I'm not above denyin' it. There's six dozen of Sham ready to go into

your cellar whenever you say the word: I ain't mean with my men like

some people. Power of nobs here to-day. There's the Prime Minister,

and the Chancellor of the Exchequer--that's him in the dirty white

hat and rumpled coat--and no end of bishops and old ladies of title.

That's Shirtings, that fat man in the black satin waistcoat. Wonderful

man, sir,--factory-boy in Manchester! Saved his shillin' a-week, and

is now worth two hundred thousand. Fine modern collection he's got!

That little man in the turn-down collar, with the gold pencil-case in

his hand, is Scrunch, the art-critic of the _Scourge_. A bitter little

beast; but Ive squared him. I gave him five-and-twenty pounds to write

a short account of the Punic War, which was given away with Bliff's

picture of 'Regulus,' and he's never pitched into any of my people

since. He's comin' to dinner to-day. O, by the bye, don't be late! I'll

drive you down."

"Thank you," said Geoff; "I--Ive got somewhere to go to. I'll find my

own way to Blackwall."

"Ha!" said Stompff, "then it is true, is it? Never mind; mum's the

word! I'm tiled! Look here: don't you mind me if you see me doing any

thing particular. It's all good for business."

It may have been so, but it was undoubtedly trying. During the next two

hours Geoff was conscious of Mr. Stompff's perpetually hovering round

him, always acting as cicerone to some different man, to whom he would

point out Geoff with his forefinger, then whisper in his companion's

ear, indicate one of Geoff's pictures with his elbow, and finish by

promenading his friend just under Geoff's nose; the stranger making a

feeble pretence of looking at some highly-hung portrait, but obviously

swallowing Geoff with his eyes, from his hair to his boots.

But he had also far more pleasurable experiences of his success. Three

or four of the leading members of the Academy, men of world-wide

fame, whom he had known by sight, and envied--so far as envy lay in

his gentle disposition--for years, came up to him, and introducing

themselves, spoke warmly of his picture, and complimented him in most

flattering terms. By one of these, the greatest of them all, Lord

Everton was subsequently brought up; and the kind old man, with that

courtesy which belongs only to the highest breeding, shook hands with

him, and expressed his delight at being the fortunate possessor of Mr.

Ludlow's admirable picture, and hoped to have the pleasure of receiving

him at Everton house, and showing him the gallery of old masters, in

whose footsteps he, Mr. Ludlow, was so swiftly following.

And then, as Geoffrey was bowing his acknowledgments, he heard his name

pronounced, and turning round found himself close by Lord Caterham's

wheelchair, and had a hearty greeting from its occupant.

"How do you do, Mr. Ludlow? You will recollect meeting me at Lady

Lilford's, I daresay. I have just been looking at your pictures, and I

congratulate you most earnestly upon them. No, I never flatter. They

appear to me very remarkable things, especially the evening-party

scene, where you seem to have given an actual spirit of motion to the

dancers in the background, so different from the ordinary stiff and

angular representation.--You can leave the chair here for a minute,

Stephens.--In such a crowd as this, Mr. Ludlow, it's refreshing--is it

not?--to get a long look at that sheltered pool surrounded by waving

trees, which Creswick has painted so charmingly. The young lady who

came with me has gone roving away to search for some favourite, whose

name she saw in the Catalogue; but if you don't mind waiting with me

a minute, she will be back, and I know she will be glad to see you,

as--ah! here she is!"

As Geoffrey looked round, a tall young lady with brown eyes, a pert

inquisitive nose, an undulating figure, and a bright laughing mouth,

came hurriedly up, and without noticing Geoffrey, bent over Lord

Caterham's chair, and said, "I was quite right, Arthur; it is--"

then, in obedience to a glance from her companion, she looked up and

exclaimed, "What, Geoffrey!--Mr. Ludlow, I mean--O, how _do_ you do?

Why, you don't mean to say you don't recollect me?"

Geoff was a bad courtier at any time, and now the expression of his

face at the warmth of this salutation showed how utterly he was puzzled.

"You _have_ forgotten, then? And you don't recollect those days when--"

"Stop!" he exclaimed, a sudden light breaking upon him; "little Annie

Maurice that used to live at Willesden Priory! My little fairy, that

I have sketched a thousand times. Well, I ought not to have forgotten

you, Miss Maurice, for I have studied your features often enough to

have impressed them on my memory. But how could I recognise my little

elf in such a dashing young lady?"

Lord Caterham looked up at them out of the corners of his eyes as they

stood warmly shaking hands, and for a moment his face wore a pained

expression; but it passed away directly, and his voice was as cheery as

usual as he said, "_Et nos mutamur in illis_, eh, Mr. Ludlow? Little

fays grow into dashing young ladies, and indolent young sketchers

become the favourites of the Academy."

"Ay," said Annie; "and the dear old Priory let to other people, and

many of those who made those times so pleasant are dead and gone. O,

Geoffrey--Mr. Ludlow, I mean--"

"Yes," said Geoff, interrupting her; "and Geoffrey turned into Mr.

Ludlow, and Annie into Miss Maurice: there's another result of the

flight of time, and one which I, for my part, heartily object to."

"Ah, but, Mr. Ludlow, I must bespeak a proper amount of veneration for

you on the part of this young lady," said Lord Caterham; "for I am

about to ask you to do me a personal favour in which she is involved."

Geoff bowed absently; he was already thinking it was time for him to go

to Margaret.

"Miss Maurice is good enough to stay with my family for the present,

Mr. Ludlow; and I am very anxious that she should avail herself of the

opportunity of cultivating a talent for drawing which she undoubtedly

possesses."

"She used to sketch very nicely years ago," said Geoff, turning to her

with a smile; and her face was radiant with good humour as she said:

"O, Geoffrey, do you recollect my attempts at cows?"

"So, in order to give her this chance, and in the hope of making her

attempt at cows more creditable than it seems they used to be, I am

going to ask you, Mr. Ludlow, to undertake Miss Maurice's artistic

education, to give her as much of your time as you can spare, and, in

fact, to give what I think I may call her genius the right inclination."

Geoffrey hesitated of course--it was his normal state--and he said

doubtingly: "You're very good; but I--I'm almost afraid--"

"You are not bashful, I trust, Mr. Ludlow," said Lord Caterham; "I

have seen plenty of your work at Lady Lilford's, and I know you to be

perfectly competent."

"It was scarcely that, my lord; I rather think that--" but when he got

thus far he looked up and saw Annie Maurice's brown eyes lifted to his

in such an appealing glance that he finished his sentence by saying:

"Well, I shall be very happy indeed to do all that I can--for old

acquaintance-sake, Annie;" and he held out his hand frankly to her.

"You are both very good," she said; "and it will be a real pleasure to

me to recommence my lessons, and to try to prove to you, Geoffrey, that

I'm not so impatient or so stupid as I was. When shall we begin?"

"The sooner the better, don't you think, Mr. Ludlow?" said Lord

Caterham.

Geoff felt his face flush as he said: "I--I expect to be going out

of town for a week or two; but when I return I shall be delighted to

commence."

"When you return we shall be delighted to see you. I can fully

understand how you long for a little rest and change after your hard

work, Mr. Ludlow. Now goodbye to you; I hope this is but the beginning

of an intimate acquaintance." And Lord Caterham, nodding to Geoffrey,

called Stephens and was wheeled away.

"I like that man, Annie," said he, when they were out of earshot; "he

has a thoroughly good face, and the truth and honesty of his eyes

overbalance the weakness of the mouth, which is undecided, but not

shifty. His manner is honest, too; don't you think so?"

He waited an instant for an answer, but Annie did not speak.

"Didn't you hear sue, Annie? or am I not worth a reply?"

"I--I beg your pardon, Arthur. I heard you perfectly; but I was

thinking. O yes, I should think Mr. Ludlow was as honest as the day."

"But what made you _distraite?_ What were you thinking of?"

"I was thinking what a wonderful difference a few years made. I was

thinking of my old ideas of Mr. Ludlow when he used to come out to dine

with papa, and sleep at our house; how he had long dark hair, which he

used to toss off his face, and poor papa used to laugh at him and call

him an enthusiast. I saw hundreds of silver threads in his hair just

now, and he seemed--well, I don't know--so much more constrained and

conventional than I recollect him."

"You seem to forget that you had frocks and trousers and trundled a

hoop in those days, Annie. You were a little fay then; you are a Venus

now: in a few years you will be married, and then you must sit to Mr.

Ludlow for a Juno. It is only your pretty flowers that change so much;

your hollies and yews keep pretty much the same throughout the year."

From the tone of voice in which Lord Caterham made this last remark,

Annie knew very well that he was in one of those bitter humours which,

when his malady was considered, came surprisingly seldom upon him, and

she knew that a reply would only have aggravated his temper, so she

forbore and walked silently by his side.

No sooner did he find himself free than Geoffrey Ludlow hurried from

the Academy, and jumping into a cab, drove off at once to Little

Flotsam Street. Never since Margaret Dacre had been denizened at

Flexor's had Geoff approached the neighbourhood without a fluttering

at his heart, a sinking of his spirits, a general notion of fright and

something about to happen. But now, whether it was that his success

at the Academy and the kind words he had had from all his friends had

given him courage, it is impossible to say, but he certainly jumped out

of the hansom without the faintest feeling of disquietude, and walked

hurriedly perhaps, but by no means nervously, up to Flexor's door.

Margaret was in, of course. He found her, the very perfection of

neatness, watering some flowers in her window which he had sent her.

She had on a tight-fitting cotton dress of a very small pattern, and

her hair was neatly braided over her ears. He had seen her look more

voluptuous, never more _piquante_ and irresistible. She came across the

room to him with outstretched hand and raised eyebrows.

"You have come!" she said; "that's good of you, for I scarcely expected

you."

Geoff stopped suddenly. "Scarcely expected me! Yet you must know that

to-day the week is ended."

"I knew that well enough; but I heard from the woman of the house here

that to-day is the private view of the Academy, and I knew how much you

would be engaged."

"And did you think that I should suffer any thing to keep me from

coming to you to-day?"

She paused a minute, then looked him full in the face. "No; frankly and

honestly I did not. I was using conventionalisms and talking society to

you. I never will do so again. I knew you would come, and--and I longed

for your coming, to tell you my delight at what I hear is your glorious

success."

"My greatest triumph is in your appreciation of it," said Geoff.

"Having said to you what I did a week ago, you must know perfectly that

the end and aim of all I think, of all I undertake, is connected with

you. And you must not keep me in suspense, Margaret, please. You must

tell me your decision."

"My decision! Now did we not part, at my suggestion, for a week's

adjournment, during which you should turn over in your mind certain

positions which I had placed before you? And now, the week ended, you

ask for my decision! Surely rather I ought to put the question."

"A week ago I said to you, 'Margaret, be my wife.' It was not very

romantically put, I confess; but I'm not a very romantic person. You

told me to wait a week, to think over all the circumstances of our

acquaintance, and to see whether my determination held good. The week

is over; Ive done all you said; and Ive come again to say, Margaret, be

my wife."

It was rather a long speech this for Geoff; and as he uttered it his

dear old face glowed with honest fervour.

"You have thoroughly made up your mind, considered every thing, and

decided?"

"I have."

"Mind, in telling you the story of my past life, I spoke out freely,

regardless of my own feelings and of yours. You owe me an equal

candour. You have thought of all?"

"Of all."

"And you still--"

"I still repeat that one demand."

"Then I say 'Yes,' frankly and freely. Geoffrey Ludlow, I will be your

wife; and by Heaven's help I will make your life happy, and atone for

my past. I--"

And she did not say any more just then, for Geoff stopped her lips with

a kiss.

"What _can_ have become of Ludlow?" said Mr. Stompff for about the

twentieth time, as he came back into the dining-room, after craning

over the balcony and looking all round.

"Giving himself airs on account of his success," said genial Mr. Bowie,

the art-critic. "I wouldn't wait any longer for him, Stompff."

"I won't," said Stompff. "Dinner!"

The dinner was excellent, the wine good and plentiful, the guests well

assorted, and the conversation as racy and salted as it usually is

when a hecatomb of absent friends is duly slaughtered by the company.

Each man said the direst things he could about his own personal

enemies; and there were but very few cases in which the rest of the

_convives_ did not join in chorus. It was during a pause in this kind

of conversation--much later in the evening, when the windows had been

thrown open, and most of the men were smoking in the balcony--that

little Tommy Smalt, who had done full justice to the claret, took his

cigar from his mouth, leaned lazily back, and looking up at the moonlit

sky, felt in such a happy state of repletion and tobacco as to be

momentarily charitable--the which feeling induced him to say:

"I wish Ludlow had been with us!"

"His own fault that he's not," said Mr. Stompff; "his own fault

entirely. However, he's missed a pleasant evening. I rather think we've

had the pull of him."

Had Geoff missed a pleasant evening? He thought otherwise. He thought

he had, never had such an evening in his life; for the same cold

steel-blue rays of the early spring moon which fell upon the topers in

the Blackwall balcony came gleaming in through Mr. Flexor's first-floor

window, lighting up a pallid face set in a frame of dead-gold hair and

pillowed on Geoffrey Ludlow's breast.

CHAPTER XIV.

THOSE TWAIN ONE FLESH.

So it was a settled thing between Margaret Dacre and Geoffrey Ludlow.

She had acceded to his earnest demand--demand thrice repeated--after

due consideration and delay, and she was to become his wife forthwith.

Indeed, their colloquy on that delicious moonlight evening would have

been brought to a conclusion much sooner than it was, had not Geoff

stalwartly declared and manfully held to his determination, spite of

every protest, not to go until they had settled upon a day on which to

be married. He did not see the use of waiting, he said; it would get

buzzed about by the Flexors; and all sorts of impertinent remarks and

congratulations would be made, which they could very well do without.

Of course, as regarded herself, Margaret would want a--what do you call

it?--outfit, _trousseau_, that was the word. But it appeared to him

that all he had to do was to give her the money, And all she had to do

was to go out and get the things she wanted, and that need not take any

time, or hinder them from naming a day--well, let us say in next week.

He himself had certain little arrangements to make; but he could very

well get through them all in that time. And what did Margaret say?

Margaret did not say very much. She had been lying perfectly tranquil

in Geoffrey's arms; a position which, she said, first gave her

assurance that her new life had indeed begun. She should be able to

realise it more fully, she thought, when she commenced in a home of

her own, and in a fresh atmosphere; and as the prying curiosity of the

Flexors daily increased, and as Little Flotsam Street, with its normal

pavement of refuse and its high grim house-rows scarcely admitting any

light, was an objectionable residence, she could urge no reason for

delay. So a day at the end of the ensuing week was fixed upon; and

no sooner had it been finally determined than Geoff, looking round

at preparations which were absolutely necessary, was amazed at their

number and magnitude.

He should be away a fortnight, he calculated, perhaps longer; and it

was necessary to apprise the families and the one or two "ladies'

colleges" in which he taught drawing of his absence. He would also let

Stompff know that he would not find him in his studio during the next

few days (for it was the habit of this great _entrepreneur_ to pay

frequent visits to his _protégés_, just to "give 'em a look-up," as

he said; but in reality to see that they were not doing work for any

opposition dealer); but he should simply tell Stompff that he was going

out of town for a little change, leaving that worthy to imagine that

he wanted rest after his hard work. And then came a point at which he

hitched up at once, and was metaphorically thrown on his beam-ends.

What was he to say to his mother and sister and to his intimate friends?

To the last, of course, there was no actual necessity to say any thing,

save that he knew he must have some one to "give away" the bride, and

he would have preferred one of his old friends, even at the risk of

an explanation, to Flexor, hired for five shillings, and duly got up

in the costume of the old English gentleman. But to his mother and

sister it was absolutely necessary that some kind of notice should be

given. It was necessary they should know that the little household,

which, despite various small interruptions, had been carried on so

long in amity and affection, would be broken up, so far as he was

concerned; also necessary that they should know that his contribution

to the household income would remain exactly the same as though he

still partook of its benefits. He had to say all this; and he was as

frightened as a child. He thought of writing at first, and of leaving

a letter to be given to his mother after the ceremony was over; of

giving a bare history in a letter, and an amount of affection in the

postscript which would melt the stoniest maternal heart. But a little

reflection caused him to think better of this notion, and determined

him to seek an interview with his mother. It was due to her, and he

would go through with it.

So one morning, when he had watched his sister Til safe off into a

prolonged diplomatic controversy with the cook, involving the reception

of divers ambassadors from the butcher and other tradespeople, Geoff

made his way into his mother's room, and found her knitting something

which might have been either an antimacassar for a giant or a

counterpane for a child, and at once intimated his pleasure at finding

her alone, as he had "something to say to her."

This was an ominous beginning in Mrs. Ludlow's ears, and her "cross"

at once stood out visibly before her; Constantine himself had never

seen it plainer. The mere pronunciation of the phrase made her nervous;

she ought to have "dropped one and taken up two;" but her hands got

complicated, and she stopped with a knitting-needle in mid-air.

"If you're alluding to the butcher's book, Geoffrey," she said, "I

hold myself blameless. It was understood, thoroughly understood, that

it should be eightpence a pound all round; and if Smithers chooses

to charge ninepence-halfpenny for lamb, and you allow it, I don't

hold myself responsible. I said to your sister at the time--I said,

'Matilda, I'm sure Geoffrey--'"

"It's not that, mother, I want to talk to you about," said Geoff, with

a half-smile "it's a bigger subject than the price of butcher's meat. I

want to talk to you about myself--about my future life."

"Very well, Geoffrey; that does not come upon me unawares. I am a

woman of the world. I ought to be, considering the time I had with

your poor father; and I suppose that now you're making a name, you'll

find it necessary to entertain. He did, poor fellow, though it's

little enough name or money he ever made! But if you want to see your

friends round you, there must be help in the kitchen. There are certain

things--jellies, and that like--that must come from the pastry-cook's;

but all the rest we can do very well at home with a little help in the

kitchen."

"You don't comprehend me yet, mother. I--I'm going to leave you."

"To leave us!--O, to live away! Very well, Geoffrey," said the old

lady, bridling up; "if you've grown too grand to live with your mother,

I can only say I'm sorry for you. Though I never saw my name in print

in the _Times_ newspaper, except among the marriages; and if that's to

be the effect it has upon me, I hope I never shall."

"My dear mother, how _can_ you imagine any thing so absurd! The truth

is--"

"O yes, Geoffrey, I understand. Ive not lived or sixty years in the

world for nothing. Not that there's been ever the least word said

about your friends coming pipe-smoking at all times of the night, or

hot water required for spirits when Emma was that dead with sleep she

could scarcely move; nor about young persons--female models you call

them--trolloping misses I say."

It is worthy of remark that in all business matters Mrs. Ludlow was

accustomed to treat her son as a cipher, forgetting that two-thirds of

the income by which the house was supported were contributed by him.

There was no thought of this, however, in honest old Geoff's mind as he

said,

"Mother, you won't hear me out! The fact is, I'm going to be married."

"To be married, Geoffrey!" said the old lady, in a voice that was much

softer and rather tremulous; "to be married, my dear boy! Well, that is

news!" Her hands trembled as she laid them on his big shoulders and put

up her face to kiss him. "Well, well, to be sure! I never thought you'd

marry now, Geoffrey. I looked upon you as a confirmed old bachelor. And

who is it that has caught you at last? Not Miss Sanders, is it?"

Geoffrey shook his head.

"I thought not. No, that would never do. Nice kind of girl too; but

if we're to hold our heads so high when all our money comes out of

sugar-hogsheads in Thames Street, why where will be the end of it, I

should like to know? It isn't Miss Hall?"

Geoffrey repeated his shake.

"Well, I'm glad of it; not but what I'm very fond of Emily Hall; but

that half-pay father of hers! I shouldn't like some of the people about

here to know that we were related to a half-pay captain with a wooden

leg; and he'd be always clumping about the house, and be horrible

for the carpets! Well, if it isn't Minnie Beverley, I'll give it up;

for you'd never go marrying that tall Dickenson, who's more like a

dromedary than a woman!"

"It is not Minnie Beverley, nor the young lady who's like a dromedary,"

said Geoff, laughing. "The young lady I am going to marry is a stranger

to you; you have never even seen her."

"Never seen her! O Geoff!" cried the old lady, with horror in her face,

"you're never going to marry one of those trolloping models, and bring

her home to live with us?"

"No, no, mother; you need be under no alarm. This young lady, who is

from the country, is thoroughly ladylike and well educated. But I shall

not bring her home to you; we shall have a house of our own."

"And what shall we do, Til and I? O, Geoffrey, I shall never have to go

into lodgings at my time of life, shall I, and after having kept house

and had my own plate and linen for so many years?"

"Mother, do you imagine I should increase my own happiness at

the expense of yours? Of course you'll keep this house, and all

arrangements will go on just the same as usual, except that I sha'n't

be here to worry you."

"You never worried me, my dear," said the old lady, as all his

generosity and noble unselfishness rose before her mind; "you never

worried me, but have been always the best of sons; and pray God that

you may be happy, for you deserve it." She put her arms round his neck

and kissed him fondly, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. "Ah,

here's Til," she continued, drying her eyes; "it would never do to let

her see me being so silly."

"O, here you are at last!" said Miss Til, who, as they both noticed,

had a very high colour and was generally suffused about the face and

neck; "what have you been conspiring about? The Mater looks as guilty

as possible, doesn't she, Geoff? and you're not much better, sir. What

is the matter?"

"I suspect you're simply attempting the authoritative to cover your own

confusion, Til. There's something--"

"No, no! I won't be put off in that manner! What _is_ the matter?"

"There's nothing the matter, my dear," said Mrs. Ludlow, who by this

time had recovered her composure; "though there is some great news.

Geoffrey's going to be married!"

"What!" exclaimed Miss Til, and then made one spring into his arms. "O,

you darling old Geoff, you don't say so? O, how quiet you have kept it,

you horrible hypocrite, seeing us day after day and never breathing a

word about it! Now, who is it, at once? Stop, shall I guess? Is it any

one I know?"

"No one that you know."

"O, I am so glad! Do you know, I think I hate most people I

know--girls, I mean; and I'm sure none of them are nice enough for my

Geoff. Now, what's she like, Geoff?"

"O, I don't know."

"That's what men always say--so tiresome! Is she dark or fair?"

"Well, fair, I suppose."

"And what coloured hair and eyes?"

"Eh? well, her hair is red, I think."

"Red! Lor, Geoff! what they call carrots?"

"No; deep-red, like red gold--"

"O, Geoff, I know, I know! Like the Scylla in the picture. O, you worse

than fox, to deceive me in that way, telling me it was a model, and all

the rest of it. Well, if she's like that, she must be wonderful to look

at, and I'm dying to see her. What's her name?"

"Margaret."

"Margaret! That's very nice; I like Margaret very much. Of course

you'll never let yourself be sufficiently childishly spoony to let

it drop into Peggy, which is atrocious. I'm very glad she's got a

nice name; for, do all I could, I'm certain I never could like a

sister-in-law who was called Belinda or Keziah, or any thing dreadful."

"Have you fixed your wedding-day, Geoffrey?"

"Yes, mother; for Thursday next."

"Thursday!" exclaimed Miss Til. "Thursday next? why there'll be no time

for me to get anything ready; for I suppose, as your sister, Geoff, I'm

to be one of the bridesmaids?"

"There will be no bridesmaids, dear Til," said Geoffrey; "no company,

no breakfast. I have always thought that, if ever I married, I should

like to walk into the church with my bride, have the service gone

through, and walk out again, without the least attempt at show; and I'm

glad to find that Margaret thoroughly coincides with me."

"But surely, Geoffrey," said Mrs. Ludlow, "your friends will--"

"O my! Talking of friends," interrupted Miss Til, "I quite forgot

in all this flurry to tell you that Mr. Charles Potts is in the

drawing-room, waiting to see you, Geoffrey."

"Dear me! is he indeed? ah, that accounts for a flushed face--"

"Don't be absurd, Geoff! Shall I tell him to come here?"

"You may if you like; but don't come back with him, as I want five

minutes' quiet talk with him."

So Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter left the studio, and in a few minutes

Charley Potts arrived. As he walked up to Geoffrey and wrung his hand,

both men seemed under some little constraint. Geoff spoke first.

"I'm glad you're here, Charley. I should have gone up to your place

if you hadn't looked in to-day. I have something to tell you, and

something to ask of you."

"Tell away, old boy; and as for the asking, look upon it as

done,--unless it's tin, by the way; and there I'm no good just now."

"Charley, I'm going to be married next Thursday to Margaret Dacre--the

girl we found fainting in the streets that night of the Titians."

Geoff expected some exclamation, but his friend only nodded his head.

"She has told me her whole life: insisted upon my hearing it before I

said a word to her; made me wait a week after I had asked her to be my

wife, on the chance that I should repent; behaved in the noblest way."

Geoffrey again paused, and Mr. Potts again nodded.

"We shall be married very quietly at the parish-church here; and there

will be nobody present but you. I want you to come; will you?"

"Will I? Why, old man, we've been like brothers for years; and to think

that I'd desert you at a time like this! I--I didn't quite mean that,

you know; but if not, why not? You know what I do mean."

"Thanks, Charley. One thing more: don't talk about it until after it's

over. I'm an awkward subject for chaff, particularly such chaff as this

would give rise to. You may tell old Bowker, if you like; but no one

else."

And Mr. Potts went away without delivering that tremendous philippic

with which he had come charged. Perhaps it was his conversation with

Miss Til in the drawing-room which had softened his manners and

prevented him from being brutal.

They were married on the following Thursday; Margaret looking perfectly

lovely in her brown-silk dress and white bonnet Charley Potts could not

believe her to be the haggard creature in whose rescue he had assisted;

and simple old William Bowker, peering out from between the curtains

of a high pew, was amazed at her strange weird beauty. The ceremony

was over; and Geoff, happy and proud, was leading his wife down the

steps of the church to the fly waiting for them, when a procession of

carriages, coachmen and footmen with white favours, and gaily-clad

company, all betokening another wedding, drove up to the door. The

bride and her bridesmaids had alighted, and the bridegroom's best-man,

who with his friend had just jumped out of his cabriolet, was bowing to

the bridesmaids as Geoff and Margaret passed. He was a pleasant airy

fellow, and seeing a pretty woman coming down the steps, he looked hard

at her. Their eyes met, and there was something in Margaret's glance

which stopped him in the act of raising his hand to his hat. Geoffrey

saw nothing of this; he was waving his hand to Bowker, who was standing

by; and they passed on to the fly.

"Come on, Algy!" called out the impatient intended bridegroom; "they'll

be waiting for us in the church. What on earth are you staring at?"

"Nothing, dear old boy!" said Algy Barford, who was the best man just

named,--"nothing but a resurrection!--only a resurrection; by Jove,

that's all!"

Book the Second.

CHAPTER I.

NEW RELATIONS.

The fact of her having a daughter-in-law whom she had never seen, of

whose connections and antecedents she knew positively nothing, weighed

a good deal on Mrs. Ludlow's mind. "If she had been an Indian, my

dear," she said to her daughter Matilda, "at least, I don't mean an

Indian, not black you know; of course not--ridiculous; but one of

those young women who are sent out to India by their friends to pick

up husbands,--it would be a different matter. Of course, then I could

not have seen her until she came over to England; and as Geoff has

never been in India, I don't quite see how it could have happened; but

you know what I mean. But to think that she should have been living

in London, within the bills of thingummy--mortality, and Geoff never

to bring her to see me, is most extraordinary--most extraordinary!

However, it only goes to prove what Ive said--that I have a cross

to bear; and now my son's marrying himself in a most mysterious and

Arabian-nights-like manner is added to the short-weight which we always

get from the baker, and to the exceeding forwardness shown by that

young man with the pomatumed hair and the steel heart stuck into his

apron, whenever you go into the grocer's shop."

And although Miss Matilda combated this idea with great resolution,

albeit by no means comfortable in her own mind as to Geoffrey's

proceedings, the old lady continued in a state of mind in which

indignation at a sense of what she imagined the slight put upon her

was only exceeded by her curiosity to catch a glimpse of her son's

intended: under the influence of which latter feeling she even proposed

to Til that they should attend the church on the occasion of the

marriage-ceremony. "I can put on my Maltese-lace veil, you know, my

dear: and if we gave the pew-opener sixpence, she'd put us into a place

in the gallery where we could hide behind a pillar, and be unseen

spectators of the proceedings." But this suggestion was received with

so much disfavour by her daughter that the old lady was compelled to

abandon it, together with an idea, which she subsequently broached, of

having Mr. Potts to supper,--giving him sprats, or tripe, or some of

those odd things that men like; and then, when he was having a glass

of spirits-and-water and smoking a pipe, getting him to tell us all

about it, and how it went off. So Mrs. Ludlow was obliged to content

herself with a line from Geoffrey,--received two or three days after

his marriage, saying that he was well and happy, and that his Margaret

sent her love ("She might have written that herself, I think!" said the

old lady; "it would have been only respectful; but perhaps she can't

write. Lord, Lord! to think we should have come to this!"),--and with a

short report from Mr. Potts, whom Til had met, accidentally of course,

walking one morning near the house, and who said that all had gone off

capitally, and that the bride had looked perfectly lovely.

But there was balm in Gilead; and consolation came to old Mrs. Ludlow

in the shape of a letter from Geoffrey at the end of the first week of

his absence, requesting his mother and sister to see to the arrangement

of his new house, the furniture of which was all ordered, and would

be sent in on a certain day, when he wished Til and his mother to be

present. Now the taking of this new house, and all in connection with

it, had been a source of great disquietude and much conversation to

the old lady, who had speculated upon its situation, its size, shape,

conveniences, &c., with every one of her little circle of acquaintance.

"Might be in the moon, my dear, for all we know about it," she used to

say; "one would think that one's own son would mention where he was

going to live--to his mother, at least: but Geoff is that tenacious,

that--well, I suppose it's part of the cross of my life." But the

information had come at last, and the old lady was to have a hand,

however subordinate, in the arrangements; and she was proportionately

pleased. "And now, Til, where is it, once more! Just read the letter

again, will you?--for we're to be there the first thing to-morrow

morning, Geoff says. What?--O, the vans will be there the first thing

to-morrow morning! Yes, I know what the vans' first thing is--eleven

o'clock or thereabouts; and then the men to go out for dinner at

twelve, and not come back till half-past two, if somebody isn't there

to hunt them up! The Elm Lodge, Lowbar! Lowbar! Why, that's Holloway

and Whittington, and all that turn-again nonsense about the bells!

Well, I'm sure! Talk about the poles being asunder, my dear; they're

not more asunder than Brompton and Lowbar. O, of course that's done

that he needn't see more of us than he chooses, though there was no

occasion for that, I'm sure, at least so far as I'm concerned; I know

when I'm wanted fast enough, and act accordingly."

"I don't think there was any such idea in Geoff's mind, mamma," said

Til; "he always had a wish to go to the other side of town, as he found

this too relaxing."

"Other side of town, indeed, my dear?--other side of England, you mean!

This side has always been good enough for me; but then, you see, I

never was a public character. However, if we are to go, we'd better

have Brown's fly; it's no good our trapesing about in omnibuses that

distance, and perhaps taking the wrong one, and I don't know what."

But the old lady's wrath (which, indeed, did not deserve the name of

wrath, but would be better described as a kind of perpetual grumble,

in which she delighted) melted away when, on the following morning,

Brown's fly, striking off to the left soon after it commenced ascending

the rise of Lowbar Hill, turned into a pretty country road, and

stopped before a charming little house, bearing the name "Elm Lodge"

on its gate-pillars. The house, which stood on a small eminence, was

approached by a little carriage-sweep; had a little lawn in front, on

which it opened from French windows, covered by a veranda, nestling

under climbing clematis and jasmine; had the prettiest little rustic

portico, floored with porcelain tiles; a cosy dining-room, a pretty

little drawing-room with the French windows before named, and a capital

painting-room. From the windows you had a splendid view over broad

fields leading to Hampstead, with Harrow church fringing the distant

horizon. Nobody could deny that it was a charming little place; and

Mrs. Ludlow admitted the fact at once.

"Very nice, very nice indeed, my dear Til!" said she; "Geoffrey has

inherited my taste--that I will say for him. Rather earwiggy, I should

think, all that green stuff over the balcony; too much so for me;

however, I'm not going to live here, so it don't matter. Oh! the vans

have arrived! Well, my stars! all in suites! Walnut and green silk for

the drawing room, black oak and dark-brown velvet for the dining-room,

did you say, man? It's never--no, my dear, I thought not; it's _not_

real velvet,--Utrecht, my dear; I just felt it. I thought Geoff would

never be so insane as to have real; though, as it is, it must have

cost a pretty penny. Well, he never gave us any thing of this sort at

Brompton; of course not."

"O, mother, how can you talk so!" said Til; "Geoff has always been

nobly generous; but recollect he's only just beginning to make money."

"Quite true, my dear, quite true; and he's been the best of sons. Only

I should have liked for once to have had the chance of showing my taste

in such matters. In your poor father's time every thing was so heavy

and clumsy compared to what it is nowadays, and--there! I would have

had none of your rubbishing Cupids like that, holding up those stupid

baskets."

So the old lady chattered on, by no means allowing her energy to relax

by reason of her talk, but bustling about with determined vigour.

When she had tucked up her dress, and got a duster into her hand, she

was happy, flying at looking-glasses and picture-frames, and rubbing

off infinitesimal atoms of dirt; planting herself resolutely in every

body's way, and hunting up, or, as she termed it "hinching," the

upholsterer's men in the most determined manner.

"I know 'em, my dear; a pack of lazy carpet-caps; do nothing unless you

hinch 'em;" and so she worried and nagged and hustled and drove the

men, until the pointed inquiry of one of them as to "who _was_ that

_h_old cat?" suggested to Miss Til the propriety of withdrawing her

mother from the scene of action. But she had done an immense deal of

good, and caused such progress to be made, that before they left, the

rooms had begun to assume something like a habitable appearance. They

went to take one more look round the house before getting into Brown's

fly; and it was while they were upstairs that Mrs. Ludlow opened a

door which she had not seen before--a door leading into a charming

little room, with light chintz paper and chintz hangings, with a maple

writing-table in the window, and a cosy lounge-chair and a _prie-dieu_;

and niches on either side the fireplace occupied by little bookcases,

into which the foreman of the upholsterers was placing a number of

handsomely-bound books, which he took from a box on the floor.

"Why, good Lord! what's this?" said the old lady, as soon as she

recovered her breath.

"This is the budwaw, mum," said the foreman, thinking he had been

addressed.

"The what, man? What does he say, Matilda?"

"The budwaw, mum; Mrs. Ludlow's own room as is to be. Mr. Ludlow was

most partickler about this room, mum; saw all the furniture for it

before he went away, mum; and give special directions as to where it

was to be put."

"Ah, well, it's all right, I daresay. Come along, my dear."

But Brown's horse had scarcely been persuaded by his driver to

comprehend that he was required to start off homewards with Brown's

fly, when the old lady turned round to her daughter, and said solemnly:

"You mark my words, Matilda, and after I'm dead and gone don't you

forget 'em--your brother's going to make a fool of himself with this

wife of his. I don't care if she were an angel, he'd spoil her.

Boudoir, indeed!--room all to herself, with such a light chintz as

that, and maple too; there's not one woman in ten thousand could stand

it; and Geoffrey's building up a pretty nest for himself, you mark my

words."

Two days later a letter was received from Geoffrey to say that they

had arrived home, and that by the end of the week the house would

be sufficiently in order, and Margaret sufficiently rested from her

fatigue, to receive them, if they would come over to Elm Lodge to

lunch. As the note was read aloud by Til, this last word struck upon

old Mrs. Ludlow's ear, and roused her in an instant.

"To what, my dear?" she asked. "I beg your pardon, I didn't catch the

word."

"To lunch, mamma."

"O, indeed; then I did catch the word, and it wasn't your mumbling tone

that deceived me. To lunch, eh? Well, upon my word! I know I'm a stupid

old woman, and I begin to think I live in heathenish times; but I know

in my day that a son would no more have thought of asking his mother to

lunch than--well, it's good enough for us, I suppose."

"Mamma, how _can_ you say such things! They're scarcely settled yet,

and don't know any thing about their cook; and no doubt Margaret's a

little frightened at first--I'm sure I should be, going into such a

house as that."

"Well, my dear, different people are differently constituted. I

shouldn't feel frightened to walk into Buckingham Palace as mistress

to-morrow. However, I daresay you're right;" and then Mrs. Ludlow

went into the momentous question of "what she was to go in." It was

lucky that in this matter she had Til at her elbow; for whatever the

old lady's taste may have been in houses and furniture, it was very

curious in dress, leaning towards wild stripes and checks and large

green leaves, with veins like caterpillars, spread over brown grounds;

towards portentous bonnets, bearing cockades and bows of ribbon where

such things were never seen before; to puce-coloured gloves, and

parasols rescued at an alarming sacrifice from a cheap draper's sale.

But under Til's supervision Mrs. Ludlow was relegated to a black-silk

dress, and the bonnet which Geoffrey had presented to her on her

birthday, and which Til had chosen; and to a pair of lavender gloves

which fitted her exactly, and had not those caverns at the tips of the

fingers and that wrinkled bagginess in the thumbs which were usually

to be found in the old lady's hand-coverings; and as she took her seat

in Brown's fly, the neighbours on either side, with their noses firmly

pressed against their parlour-windows, were envious of her personal

appearance, though both of them declared afterwards that she wanted a

"little more lighting-up."

When the fly was nearing its destination, Mrs. Ludlow began to grow

very nervous, a state which was exhibited by her continually tugging at

her bonnet-strings and shaking out the skirt of her dress, requesting

to be informed whether she was "quite straight," and endeavouring to

catch the reflection of herself in the front glasses of the fly. These

performances were scarcely over before the fly stopped at the gate, and

Mrs. Ludlow descending was received into her son's strong arms. The

old lady's maternal feelings were strongly excited at that moment, for

she never uttered a word of complaint or remonstrance, though Geoff

squeezed up all the silk skirt which she had taken such pains to shake

out, and hugged her until her bonnet was all displaced. Then, after

giving Til a hearty embrace, Geoff took his mother's hand and led her

across the little lawn to the French window, at which Margaret was

waiting to receive her.

Naturally enough, old Mrs. Ludlow had thought very much over this

interview, and had pictured it to herself in anticipation a score of

times. She had never taken any notice of the allusions to the likeness

between her daughter-in-law that was to be and the Scylla-head which

Geoff had painted; but had drawn entirely upon her own imagination for

the sort of person who was to be presented to her. This ideal personage

had at various times undergone a good deal of change. At one time she

would appear as a slight girl with long fair hair and blue eyes ("what

I call a wax-doll beauty," the old lady would think); then she would

have large black eyes, long black hair, and languishing manners; then

she would be rather plain, but with a finely-developed figure, Mrs.

Ludlow having a theory that most artists thought of figure more than

face; but in any case she would be some little chit of a girl, just the

one to catch such a man as our Geoff, who stuck to his paintings, and

had seen so little of the world.

So much for Mrs. Ludlow's ideal; the realisation was this. On the step

immediately outside the window stood Margaret, a slight rose-flush

tinting her usually pale cheeks just under her eyes; her deep-violet

eyes wider open than usual, but still soft and dreamy; her red-gold

hair in bands round her face, but twisted up at the back into one

large knot at the top of her head. She was dressed in a bright-blue

cambric dress, which fell naturally and gracefully round her, neither

bulging out with excess of crinoline, nor sticking limply to her like a

bathing-gown; across her shoulders was a large white muslin-cape, such

as that which Marie Antoinette is represented as wearing in Delaroche's

splendid picture; muslin-cuffs and a muslin-apron. A gleam of sun shone

upon her, bathing her in light; and as the old lady stood staring at

her in amazement, a recollection came across her of something which she

had not seen for more than forty years, nor ever thought of since,--a

reminiscence of a stained-glass figure of the Virgin in some old

Belgian cathedral, pointed out to her by her husband in her honeymoon.

As this idea passed through her mind, the tears rose into Mrs.

Ludlow's eyes. She was an excitable old lady and easily touched; and

simultaneously with the painted figure she thought of the husband

pointing it out,--the young husband then so brave and handsome, now

for so many years at rest,--and she only dimly saw Margaret coming

forward to meet her. But remembering that tears would be a bad omen

for such an introduction, she brushed them hastily away, and looked up

in undisguised admiration at the handsome creature moving gracefully

towards her. Geoffrey, in a whirl of stuttering doubt, said, "My

mother, Margaret; mother, this is--Margaret--my wife;" and each woman

moved forward a little, and neither knew what to do. Should they

shake hands or kiss? and from whom should the suggestion come? It

came eventually from the old lady, who said simply, "I'm glad to see

you, my dear;" and putting one hand on Margaret's shoulder, kissed

her affectionately. There was no need of introduction between the

others. Til's bright eyes were sparkling with admiration and delight;

and Margaret, seeing the expression in them, reciprocated it at once,

saying, "And this is Til!" and then they embraced, as warmly as girls

under such circumstances always do. Then they went into the house, Mrs.

Ludlow leaning on her son's arm, and Til and Margaret following.

"Now, mother," said Geoff, as they passed through the little hall,

"Margaret will take you upstairs. You'll find things much more settled

than when you were here last." And upstairs the women went accordingly.

When they were in the bedroom, Mrs. Ludlow seated herself comfortably

in a chair, with her back to the light, and said to Margaret:

"Now, my dear, come here and let me have a quiet look at you. Ive

thought of you a thousand times, and wondered what you were like; but I

never thought of any thing like this."

"You--you are not disappointed, I hope," said Margaret. She knew it was

a dull remark, and she made it in a constrained manner. But what else

was she to say?

"Disappointed! no, indeed, my dear. But I won't flatter you; you'll

have quite enough of that from Geoffrey. I shall always think of you

in future as a saint; you're so like the pictures of the saints in the

churches abroad."

"You see you flatter me at once."

"No, my dear, I don't. For you are like them, I'm sure; not that you're

to wear horsehair next your skin, or be chopped up into little pieces,

or made to walk on hot iron, or any thing of that sort, you know; but I

can see by your face that you're a good girl, and will make my Geoff a

good wife."

"I will try to do so, Mrs. Ludlow," said Margaret, earnestly.

"And you'll succeed, my dear. I knew I could always trust Geoff for

that; he might marry a silly girl, one that hadn't any proper notions

of keeping house or managing those nuisances of servants but I knew he

would choose a good one. And don't call me 'Mrs. Ludlow,' please, my

dear. I'm your mother now; and with such a daughter-in-law I'm proud of

the title!" This little speech was sealed with a kiss, which drove away

the cloud that was gathering on Margaret's brow, and they all went down

to lunch together. The meal passed off without any particular incident

to be recorded. Margaret was self-possessed, and did the honours of

her table gracefully, paying particular attention to her guests, and

generally conducting herself infinitely better than Geoff, who was in

a flurry of nervous excitement, and was called to order by his mother

several times for jumping up to fetch things when he ought to have rung

the bell. "A habit that I trust you'll soon break him of, Margaret, my

dear; for nothing goes to spoil a servant so quickly; and calling over

the bannisters for what he wants is another trick, as though servants'

legs weren't given them to answer bells." But Mrs. Ludlow did not

talk much, being engaged, during the intervals of eating, in mentally

appraising the articles on the table, in quietly trying the weight of

the spoons, and in administering interrogative taps to the cow on the

top of the butter-dish to find if she were silver or plated, in private

speculations as to which quality of Romford ale Geoffrey had ordered

and what he paid for it, and various other little domestic whereto

her experience as a household manager prompted her. Geoffrey too was

silent; but the conversation, though not loud, was very brisk between

Margaret and Til, who seemed, to Geoff's intense delight, to have taken

a great fancy for each other.

It was not until late in the afternoon, when the hour at which Brown's

fly had been ordered was rapidly approaching, and they were all seated

in the veranda enjoying the distant view, the calm stillness, and the

fresh air, that the old lady, who had been looking with a full heart at

Geoffrey--who, seated close behind Margaret, was playing with the ends

of her hair as she still kept up her conversation with Til--said:

"Well, Geoffrey, I don't think I ought to leave you to-night without

saying how much I am pleased with my new daughter. O, I don't mind her

hearing me; she's too good a girl to be upset by a little truthful

praise--ain't you, my dear? Come and sit by me for a minute and give

me your hand, Margaret; and you, Geoff, on the other side. God bless

you both, my children, and make you happy in one another! You're

strange to one another, and you'll have some little worries at first;

but you'll soon settle down into happiness. And that's the blessing of

your both being young and fresh. I'm very glad you didn't marry poor

Joe Telford's widow, Geoff, as we thought you would, ten years ago.

I don't think, if I had been a man, I should have liked marrying a

widow. Of course every one has their little love-affairs before they

marry, but that's nothing; but with a widow it's different, you know;

and she'd be always comparing you with the other one, and perhaps the

comparison might not be flattering. No; it's much better to begin life

both together, with no past memories to--why, Geoffrey, how your hand

shakes, my dear! What's the matter? it can't be the cold, for Margaret

is as steady as a rock."

Geoffrey muttered something about "a sudden shiver," and just at

that moment the fly appeared at the gate So they parted with renewed

embraces and promises of meeting again very shortly; Geoffrey was to

bring Margaret over to Brompton, and the next time they came to Elm

Lodge they must spend a long day, and perhaps sleep there; and it was

not until Brown's fly turned the corner which shut the house out of

sight that Mrs. Ludlow ceased stretching her head out of the window and

nodding violently. Then she burst out at once with her long-pent-up

questioning.

"Well, Matilda, and what do you think of your new relation? I'm sure

you've been as quiet as quiet; there's been no getting a word out of

you. But I suppose you don't mind telling your mother. What _do_ you

think of her?"

"She is very handsome, mamma, and seems very kind, and very fond of

Geoff."

"Handsome, my dear! She's really splendid! There's a kind of _je ne

sais quoi_ about her that--and tall too, like a duchess! Well, I don't

think the Wilkinsons in the Crescent will crow any longer. Why, that

girl that Alfred Wilkinson married the other day, and that they all

went on so about, isn't a patch upon Margaret. Did you notice her cape

and cuffs, Matilda? Rather Frenchified, I thought; rather like that

nurse that the Dixons brought from Boulogne last year, but very pretty.

I hope she'll wear them when she comes to spend the day with us, and

that some of those odious people in the Crescent will come to call.

Their cook seems to have a light hand at pie-crust; and _did_ you taste

the jelly, my dear? I wonder if it was made at home; if so, the cook's

a treasure, and dirt-cheap at seventeen and every thing found except

beer, which Margaret tells me is all she gives! I see they didn't like

my arrangement of the furniture; theyve pulled the grand-piano away

from the wall, and put the ottoman in its place: nice for the people

who sit on it to rub the new paper with their greasy heads!"

And so the old lady chattered on until she felt sleepy, and stumbled

out at her own door in an exhausted state, from which the delicious

refreshment of a little cold brandy-and-water and a particularly hard

and raspy biscuit did not rouse her. But just as Til was stepping into

bed her mother came into the room, perfectly bright and preternaturally

sharp, to say, "Do you know, my dear, I think, after all, Geoffrey was

very fond of Joe Telford's widow? You were too young then to recollect

her; for when I was speaking about her to-night, and saying how much

better it was that both husband and wife should come fresh to each

other, Geoff s hand shook like an aspen-leaf, and his face was as pale

as death."