As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his
client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments
can charge his own prices; but Stuart Denville, Esq, MC, of Saltinville,
paid a visit to his tailor to find that gentleman inexorable.
"No, Mr Denville, sir, it ain't to be done. I should be glad to fit
out the young man, as he should be fitted out as a gentleman, sir; but
there is bounds to everything."
"Exactly, my dear Mr Ping, but I can assure you that before long both
his and my accounts shall be paid."
"No, sir, can't do it. I'm very busy, too. Why not try Crowder and
Son?"
"My dee-ar Mr Ping--you'll pardon me? I ask you as a man, as an artist
in your profession, could I see my son--my heir--a gentleman who I hope
some day will make a brilliant match--a young man who is going at once
into the best of society--could I now, Mr Ping, see that youth in a
suit of clothes made by Crowder and Son? Refuse my appeal, if you
please, my dear sir, but--you'll pardon me--do not add insult to the
injury."
Mr Ping was mollified, and rubbed his hands softly. This was
flattering: for Crowder and Son, according to his view of the case, did
not deserve to be called tailors--certainly not gentlemen's tailors; but
he remained firm.
"No, Mr Denville, sir, far be it from me to wish to insult you, sir,
and I thank you for the amount of custom you've brought me. You can't
say as I'm unfair."
"You'll pardon me, Mr Ping; I never did."
"Thank you, sir; but as I was a saying, you've had clothes of me, sir,
for years, and you haven't paid me, sir, and I haven't grumbled, seeing
as you've introduced me clients, but I can't start an account for Mr
Denville, junior, sir, and I won't."
The MC took snuff, and rested first on one leg and then on the other;
lastly, he held his head on one side and admired two or three velvet
waistcoat pieces, so as to give Mr Ping time to repent. But Mr Ping
did not want time to repent, and he would not have repented had the MC
stayed an hour, and this the latter knew, but dared not resent, bowing
himself out at last gracefully.
"Good-morning, Mr Ping, good-morning. I am sorry you--er--but no
matter. Lovely day, is it not?"
"Lovely, sir. Good-morning--poor, penniless, proud, stuck-up,
half-starved old dandy," muttered the prosperous tradesman, as he stood
in his shirt-sleeves at the door, his grey hair all brushed forward into
a fierce frise, and a yellow inch tape round his neck like an alderman's
chain. "I wouldn't trust his boy a sixpence to save his life.
Prospects, indeed. Fashion, indeed. I expect he'll have to 'list."
The MC went smiling and mincing along the parade, waving his cane
jauntily, and passing his snuff-box into the other hand now and then to
raise his hat to some one or another, till he turned up a side street,
when, in the solitude of the empty way, he uttered a low groan, and his
face changed.
"My God!" he muttered. "How long is this miserable degradation to
last?"
He looked round sharply, as if in dread lest the emotion into which he
had been betrayed should have been observed, but there was no one near.
"I must try Barclay. I dare not go to Frank Burnett, for poor May's
sake."
A few minutes later he minced and rolled up to a large, heavy-looking
mansion in a back street, where, beneath a great dingy portico, a
grotesque satyr's head held a heavy knocker, and grinned at the visitor
who made it sound upon the door.
"Hallo, Denville, you here?" said Mr Barclay, coming up from the
street. "Didn't expect to see you. I've got the key: come in."
"A little bit of business, my dear sir. I thought I'd come on instead
of writing. Thanks--you'll pardon me--a pinch of snuff--the Prince's
own mixture."
"Ah yes." _Snuff, snuff, snuff_. "Don't like it though--too scented
for me. Come along."
He led the way through a large, gloomy hall, well hung with large
pictures and ornamented with pedestals and busts, up a broad,
well-carpeted staircase and into the drawing-room of the house--a room,
however, that looked more like a museum, so crowded was it with
pictures, old china, clocks, statues, and bronzes. Huge vases, tiny
Dresden ornaments, rich carpets, branches and lustres of cut-glass and
ormolu, almost jostled each other, while the centre of the room was
filled with lounges, chairs and tables, rich in buhl and marqueterie.
At a table covered with papers sat plump, pleasant-looking Mrs Barclay,
in a very rich, stiff brocade silk. Her appearance was vulgar; there
were too many rings upon her fat fingers, too much jewellery about her
neck and throat; and her showy cap was a wonder of lace and ribbons; but
Nature had set its stamp upon her countenance, and though she was
holding her head on one side, pursing up her lips and frowning as she
wrote in the big ledger-like book open before her, there was no
mistaking the fact that she was a thoroughly good-hearted amiable soul.
"Oh, bless us, how you startled me!" she cried, throwing herself back,
for the door had opened quietly, and steps were hardly heard upon the
soft carpet. "Why, it's you, Mr Denville, looking as if you were just
going to a ball. How are you? Not well? You look amiss. And how's
Miss Claire? and pretty little Mrs Mayblossom--Mrs Burnett?"
"My daughters are well in the extreme, Mrs Barclay," said the MC,
taking the lady's plump extended hand as she rose, to bend over it, and
kiss the fingers with the most courtly grace. "And you, my dear madam,
you?"
"Oh, she's well enough, Denville," said Barclay, chuckling. "Robust's
the word for her."
"For shame, Jo-si-ah!" exclaimed the lady, reddening furiously. She had
only blushed slightly before with pleasure; and after kicking back her
stiff silk dress to make a profound curtsey. "You shouldn't say such
things. Why, Mr Denville, I haven't seen you for ever so long; and
I've meant to call on Miss Claire, for we always get on so well
together; but I'm so busy, what with the servants, _and_ the dusting,
_and_ the keeping the books, _and_ the exercise as I'm obliged to
take--"
"And don't," said Barclay, placing a chair for the MC, and then sitting
down and putting his hands in his pockets.
"For shame, Jo-si-ah. I do indeed, Mr Denville, and it do make me so
hot."
"There, that'll do, old lady. Mr Denville wants to see me on business.
Don't you, Denville?"
"Yes--on a trifle of business; but I know that Mrs Barclay is in your
confidence. You'll pardon me, Mrs Barclay?"
A looker-on would have imagined that he was about to dance a minuet with
the lady, but he delicately took her fingers by the very tip and led her
back to her seat, into which she meant to glide gracefully, but plumped
down in a very feather-beddy way, and then blushed and frowned.
"Oh, Mr Denville won't mind me; and him an old neighbour, too, as knows
how I keep your books and everything. It isn't as if he was one of your
wicked bucks, and bloods, and macaronies as they calls 'em."
"Now, when you've done talking, woman, perhaps you'll let Denville
speak."
"Jo-si-ah!" exclaimed the lady, reddening, or to speak more correctly,
growing more red, as she raised a large fan, which hung by a silken
cord, and used it furiously.
"Now then, Denville, what is it?" said Barclay, throwing himself back in
his chair, and looking the extreme of vulgarity beside the visitor's
refinement.
"You'll pardon me, Mr Barclay?" said the MC, bowing. "Thanks. The
fact is, my dear Barclay, the time has arrived when I must launch my son
Morton upon the stream of the fashionable world."
"Mean to marry him well?" said Barclay, smiling.
"Exactly. Yes. You'll pardon me."
He took snuff in a slow, deliberate, and studied mode that Mrs Barclay
watched attentively, declaring afterwards that it was as good as a play,
while her husband also took his pinch from his own box, but in a loud,
rough, frill-browning way.
"I have high hopes and admirable prospects opening out before him, my
dear Barclay. Fortune seems to have marked him for her own, and to have
begun to smile."
"Fickle jade, sir; fickle jade."
"At times--you'll pardon me. At times. Let us enjoy her smiles while
we can. And now, my dear Barclay, that I wish to launch him handsomely
and well--to add to his natural advantages the little touches of dress,
a cane and snuff-box, and such trifles--I find, through the absence of
so many fashionable visitors affecting my fees, I am troubled,
inconvenienced for the want of a few guineas, and--er--it is very
ridiculous--er--really I did not know whom to ask, till it occurred to
me that you, my dear sir, would oblige me with, say, forty or fifty upon
my note of hand."
"Couldn't do it, sir. Haven't the money. Couldn't."
"Don't talk such stuff, Jo-si-ah," exclaimed Mrs Barclay, fanning
herself sharply, and making a sausage-like curl wabble to and fro, and
her ribbons flutter. "You can if you like."
"Woman!" he exclaimed furiously.
"Oh, I don't mind you saying `woman,'" retorted the lady. "Telling such
wicked fibs, and to an old neighbour too. If it had been that nasty,
sneering, snickle dandy, Sir Harry Payne, or that big, pompous,
dressed-up Sir Matthew Bray, you'd have lent them money directly. I'm
ashamed of you."
"Will you allow me to carry on my business in my own way, madam?"
"Yes, when it's with nobodies; but I won't sit by and hear you tell our
old neighbour, who wants a bit of help, that you couldn't do it, and
that you haven't the money, when anybody can see it sticking out in
lumps in both of your breeches' pockets, if they like to look."
"'Pon my soul, woman," said Barclay, banging his fist down upon the
table, "you're enough to drive a man mad. Denville, that woman will
ruin me."
Mrs Barclay shut up her fan and sat back in her chair, and there was a
curious kind of palpitating throbbing perceptible all over her that was
almost startling at first till her face broke up in dimples, and the red
lips parted, showing her white teeth, while her eyes half-closed. For
Mrs Barclay was laughing heartily.
"Ruin him, Mr Denville, ruin him!" she cried. "Ha, ha, ha, and me
knowing that--"
"Woman, will you hold your tongue?" thundered Barclay. "There, don't
take any notice of what I said, Denville. I've been put out this
morning and money's scarce. You owe me sixty now and interest, besides
two years' rent."
"I do--I do, my dear sir; but really, my dear Barclay, I intend to repay
you every guinea."
"He's going to lend it to you, Mr Denville," said Mrs Barclay. "It's
only his way. He always tells people he hasn't any money, and that he
has to get it from his friend in the City."
"Be quiet, woman," said Barclay, smiling grimly. "There, I'll let you
have it, Denville. Make a memorandum of it, my gal. Let's see: how
much do you want? Twenty-five will do, I suppose?"
"My dear friend--you'll pardon me--if you could make it fifty you would
confer a lasting obligation upon me. I have great hopes, indeed."
"Fifty? It's a great deal of money, Denville."
"Lend him the fifty, Josiah, and don't make so much fuss about it," said
the lady, opening the ledger, after drawing her chair to the table,
taking a dip of ink, and writing rapidly in a round, clear hand. "Got a
stamp?"
"Yes," said Barclay, taking a large well-worn pocket-book from his
breast, and separating one from quite a quire. "Fill it up. Two months
after date, Denville?"
"You'll pardon me."
"What's the use of doing a neighbour a good turn," said Mrs Barclay,
filling up the slip of blue paper in the most business-like manner, "and
spoiling it by being so tight. `Six months--after--date--interest--at--
five--per--centum'--there."
Mrs Barclay put her quill pen across her mouth, and, turning the bill
stamp over, gave it a couple of vigorous rubs on the blotting-paper
before handing it to her husband, who ran his eye over it quickly.
"Why, you've put five per cent, _per annum_," he cried. "Here, fill up
another. Five per cent."
"Stuff!" said Mrs Barclay stoutly; "are you going to charge the poor
man sixty per cent? I shan't fill up another. Here, you sign this, Mr
Denville. Give the poor man his money, Josiah."
"Well," exclaimed Barclay, taking a cash-box from a drawer and opening
it with a good deal of noise, "if ever man was cursed with a tyrant for
a wife--"
"It isn't you. There!" cried Mrs Barclay, taking the bill which the
visitor had duly signed, and placing it in a case along with some of its
kin.
"There you are, Denville," said Barclay, counting out the money in
notes, "and if you go and tell people what a fool I am, I shall have to
leave the town."
"Not while I live, Mr Barclay," said the MC, taking the notes
carefully, but with an air of indolent carelessness and grace, as if
they were of no account to such a man as he. "Sir, I thank you from my
very heart. You have done me a most kindly action. Mrs Barclay, I
thank you. My daughter shall thank you for this. You'll pardon me. My
visit is rather short. But business. Mr Barclay, good-day. I shall
not forget this. Mrs Barclay, your humble servant."
He took the hand she held out by the tips of the fingers, and bent over
it to kiss them with the most delicate of touches; but somehow, just
then there seemed to be a catch in his breath, and he pressed his lips
firmly on the soft, fat hand.
"God bless you!" he said huskily, and he turned and left the room.
"Poor man!" said Mrs Barclay after a few moments' pause, as she and her
lord listened to the descending steps, and heard the front door close.
"Why, look here, Josiah, at my hand, if it ain't a tear."
"Tchah! an old impostor and sham. Wipe it off, woman, wipe it off.
Kissing your hand, too, like that, before my very face."
"No, Jo-si-ah, I don't believe he's a bad one under all his sham and
fuss. Folks don't know folkses' insides. They say you are about the
hard-heartedest old money-lender that ever breathed, but they don't know
you as I do. There, it was very good of you to let him have it, poor
old man. I knew you would."
"I've thrown fifty pounds slap into the gutter."
"No, you haven't, dear; you've lent it to that poor old fellow, and
you've just pleased me a deal better than if you'd given me a diamond
ring, and that's for it, and more to come."
As she spoke she threw one plump arm round the money-lender's neck, and
there was a sound in the room as of a smack.
Volume One, Chapter XXV.