BENEATH THE GOWN.
Paul Somerton had improved that friendship started at the Ashford Club,
and had latterly dropped the evening society of Thomas Dibble. He had
made the discovery in search of which Mr. Dibble had been useful to
him, and since then he had preferred working at the mine alone.
Somehow or other the lad had acquired a relish for the work in which
he was engaged. A desire to please his sister, whom he loved, had
been strengthened by the dislike he had conceived for Mr. Gibbs. Had
he known half as much of strange mysteries as the author of “Zanoni,”
he might have fancied that he was impelled by some secret sympathy or
antipathy over which he had no control. But Paul knew very little even
about the great novelist’s romantic books, much less of Victor Cousin,
Condillac and materialism, Jamblichus and Polinus, Swedenborg and
Behemen, the golden ass of Apuleius and Hamilton’s metaphysics; and all
he had ever heard of Puysegur and Mesmer was at a provincial lecture
on Mesmerism and Biology by a quack, who amused his audience immensely
with a couple of confederates.
So Paul never attempted to investigate the fascination which an
exposure of Mr. Gibbs had for him, coupled with a vague sort of desire
to save Mr. Richard Tallant and Mr. Hammerton from the machinations of
so consummate a scoundrel. The sequel, however, may appear as if some
secret power were at work to bring those two opposing forces, Paul
Somerton and Shuffleton Gibbs, in contact.
He had watched at the club-door for some nights before Mr. Hammerton
appeared again. He came at last, however, and Paul at once accosted
him.
It had occurred to Paul previously that he would endeavour to watch the
players until he openly detected Shuffleton’s double cards, and then
rush into the room and denounce him.
But this he thought would compromise the poor club-keeper’s position,
and was a little more showy and romantic than necessary. So Paul
accosted the Hon. Mr. Hammerton, and as he did so Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs
passed into the club, and noticed the incident.
Mr. Hammerton was impatient at first, but when Paul told him whom he
was, his curiosity was aroused, and Paul’s earnestness soon rivetted
his attention.
“Not a very creditable part to play, my young friend, that of spy
upon the conduct of your master and his friends, by-and-by,” said Mr.
Hammerton.
“If I do good thereby to my master?” said Paul, a little timidly, as
the nature of his employment struck him in the new light suggested by
Mr. Hammerton.
“I think you have overstepped the bounds of both duty and prudence,”
said Mr. Hammerton.
“You may change your opinion,” said Paul, more courageously. “I entered
upon the business in your interest as well as Mr. Tallant’s.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Hammerton; “that was very kind of you,
certainly. From whom did you receive your instructions?”
Paul did not reply; his pride was hurt, he had not expected such a
reception as this.
“Suppose I inform Mr. Tallant how you have occupied yourself during
these last few weeks?” said Mr. Hammerton; for _his_ pride and dignity
were hurt also, and he was offended at this interference with his
liberty, in doubt for the moment whether Paul was a tool in more
skilled hands.
“I shall watch no more, sir,” said Paul. “You may take your own course;
I have done my duty. You know how to test the truth of what I have told
you. Good-night, sir.”
Paul disappeared without another word, although Mr. Hammerton called
after him. He felt miserably disappointed as he went home, and
could not help feeling that there was something of the sneak in his
composition, after all.
Why had he persevered so in this wretched business? Why had he done so
much more than his sister had asked him to do? He would move no further
in it now.
After all his trouble, to be snubbed, and by the gentleman most to be
benefited! “Well, people should mind their own business,” he said to
himself. “I’ll mind mine in future.”
It would have been better for Paul Somerton had he resolved upon this
when first he arrived in London. It was hardly wise for his sister to
excite his curiosity to so high a pitch about the conduct of other
people. Both of them suffered for their indiscretion--suffered in more
ways than one. Amy’s object was, however, served in a measure; for the
dangerous career of young Hammerton was cut short on this eventful
night of Paul’s resolve to mind his own business in future, though it
would have been better for the honourable gentleman had the conclusion
of his gaming experiences been less demonstrative than it was.
When Paul left him, he joined the little party at the Ashford Club,
determined not to entertain suspicions which for the moment had been
strongly aroused.
This was the night when the pigeon was to be completely plucked. Clever
manipulators in this art do not seize upon their prey at a first, or a
second, or a third interview. They lure Signor Pigeon on by degrees.
They let him win in the first encounter, and in the second or third
vary the luck, exciting him at last, perchance, by a rather heavy
loss, which he is anxious to retrieve. Shuffleton Gibbs had worked Mr.
Hammerton to this point, and had been assisted to some extent by Mr.
Richard Tallant; but the latter gentleman had been the tool rather than
the confederate of his University companion.
University companion! It was this educational position which made
Gibbs tolerated in the society which he affected. He was a University
man, if he had not taken a degree. Something happened to disgrace him
a little at Christ Church, it is true; but there!--“it was only a bit
of wickedness.” He made love to a pastrycook’s daughter, and ran away
with her, or something of the sort, and had a row with a fellow-student
over cards. What was all this? Youthful indiscretion, an exuberance of
animal spirits. He was a gentleman by education, at all events; he had
worn a gown.
That would have been enough to have made him a man of consideration in
any provincial city in the empire, and it was a great passport even in
cosmopolitan London; but in the dear old cathedral city where Arthur
Phillips lived, what weight it would have given to Mr. Gibbs! “Of what
college?” says a simpering inquirer. “Christ Church,” is the reply, and
the man’s position is made. You had better be hanged than not have worn
a gown in some English cities.
And so the gown assisted to cover the cloven hoofs of Mr. Shuffleton
Gibbs, even in London; the gown had been sufficient for Richard
Tallant, though it had not been enough for his father, and it had
not shielded all the owner’s villanies; it had nevertheless worked
favourably with Mr. Hammerton, who had put down Shuffleton’s wild
college career to his dashing character, his natural wilfulness, and
his animal spirits.
But during that last evening when Signor Pigeon was being plucked, the
gown somehow fell aside, and Mr. Hammerton, made hot and suspicious by
the loss of more than his present fortune, and something on account of
his money in perspective, suddenly bounced out of his seat, picked up a
duplicate card, seized Gibbs by the collar, and called him “cheat” and
“black-leg.”
There was a terrible row, you may be sure. Gibbs, in the strong grip
of Mr. Hammerton, shrunk like a coward, as he was, despite his college
reputation as a “fast” man.
Clubmen and waiters thronged round the pair, and Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs’
conviction was complete; for, besides another duplicate turning up,
the cards were found to be “doctored” substitutes for those used at
the club. Fortunately for Richard Tallant, he had “cut out” of the
four who were playing an hour before this _contretemps_ occurred. His
conduct was not without some suspicion in the club; but his father’s
reputation, his own presumed wealth, and his generally open and
apparently honest outspoken sentiments, protected him from anything
beyond mere suspicion.
He neither attacked nor defended his friend Gibbs, but looked on
whilst several members of the Ashford conducted Mr. Gibbs to the
door and thrust him into the street. A confederate assisted in the
expulsion, and was loudest, after his colleague’s disappearance, in his
condemnation of all such scoundrels.
“A plague on all cowards, I say, and a vengeance, too.... A bad world,
I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything.
A plague of all cowards, I say still.” Falstaff was not more
demonstrative in praise of virtue, and against cowardice, than this
wretched colleague of Gibbs’ in expressions of utter disgust for cheats
and black-legs. Mr. Richard Tallant was even bold enough to sneer at
the ranter, and advise him to communicate his sentiments to Shuffleton
personally.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gibbs, shaking himself for a moment like a dog after a
swim, quietly readjusted his crumpled collar, and deliberately pulled
on his unimpeachable lavender gloves.
If you could have seen his face, you would have noticed the thin lips
closely compressed, and the little eyes fixed and glaring. There were
no great signs of rage there; but an expression of disappointment--not
of despair by any means. He had been in difficulties before, and
was not wont to lose his coolness; but he had never had “cheat” and
“black-leg” thrown in his teeth until now, nor ever before trembled in
the grip of an adversary. He wondered now at his own cowardice, and
clenched his little gloved hand as he walked through St. James’s Park,
and nursed his wicked thoughts.
By-and-by he lit a cigar, and walked musingly along, looking up at the
moon. A reader for the daily press going homewards after his day’s
work, looked at him, and put him down for a sentimental swell, planning
a plot for a poem, or rehearsing some great scene for a new novel.
How clever we all are in reading character! Let us hope the poor
newspaper fag read his proofs better than he read Shuffleton Gibbs.