A DISCOVERY.
Mrs. Torwood was lady-like, good-natured, indolent, rather foolish,
easily-influenced, not difficult to get on with, and thinking more of
her clothes, her appearance, and her dogs, than anything else. She
spoilt these last terribly, and let them do whatever they pleased.
But I liked them for all that; indeed, if it had not been for them, I
doubt whether I should not have found myself too much bored in the
situation to stay there, for their mistress was very uninteresting
in my eyes, and did not move about enough to please me. Her pets,
however, had considerably more individuality than she had, and
afforded me sufficient amusement and occupation to keep me contented.
As my ignorance of dressmaking had prevented me from getting other
places that I had tried for, and as it was through the dogs that I
had at last surmounted that obstacle, mere gratitude would have
prompted me to do well by them, even if the work of looking after
them had been distasteful to me. But this was not the case, thanks to
my fondness for animals; and it was not long before they and I were
on the best of terms together.
In some respects, however, they caused me a good deal of anxiety. The
chief of these causes was the daily airing which it was my duty to
give them; and I was always thankful to find myself safely at home
again without either of my charges being lost or stolen, or having
got into any mischief. I used to take them out singly and in a chain
just at first; and as soon as our acquaintance was sufficiently
advanced for me to discard the chain, I took them two at a time. But
I did not venture to go beyond that number when in town, as all the
dear creatures had some little characteristic peculiarity or other,
which made it necessary to keep a sharp look-out upon each individual
during the whole walk, if one did not want to lose them or get into a
scrape. If I enumerate these little peculiarities, I think it will be
evident that my precaution of not taking more than two together was
not uncalled-for.
I will begin with Dart, a terrier whose mouth always watered after
the calves of children's legs, though he only wanted to enjoy the
feel of the flesh between his teeth, and had not the least wish to do
any real harm. As soon as he saw a pair of these tempting objects
anywhere near, he would go and join the owner, wagging his tail,
smoothing back his ears, smiling, wriggling his body, and altogether
looking sweet enough to inspire confidence in the breast of the most
distrustful infant. Then, turning his head insidiously as he walked
along, he would seize the nearest calf, give it a good squeeze, and
depart hastily, leaving the victim more frightened than hurt, howling
dismally, kicking, and struggling. Of course it was easy to prevent
the catastrophe by recalling him the instant he assumed an expression
of extra-amiability, and set off in the direction of a barelegged
child; but, as barelegged children are plentiful in London, it was
obviously well for whoever had charge of Dart to keep an eye upon him
constantly.
Yarrow, again, was a collie who had a rooted conviction that his
constitution required carriage exercise, and who never failed to
do his best to give effect to that idea by trying to get into any
carriage, cab, or 'bus whose door he saw open. This habit of his
sometimes gave rise to laughable scenes, as, for instance, one day
when he skipped up the steps of an extremely grand barouche, just as
the gorgeously-apparelled footman was holding the door open for his
mistress to get in, whilst a dignified butler, and a couple more men
in gorgeous liveries were respectfully attending her to the door of
the house she was leaving. The flunkey at the carriage nearly fell
backwards with horror, but did not venture to interfere with the
audacious intruder, so Yarrow settled himself in triumph on the
front seat, and sat there at ease with his tongue hanging out, and
shedding drops on the smart cushions which he was profaning. He
looked blandly at the dismayed servants--not one of whom dared lay a
finger on him--and at the lady standing laughing on the doorstep of
the house; and how the scene would have terminated if I had not
arrived to the rescue and dislodged him, I cannot imagine. He was
complete master of the situation as far as the servants were
concerned; but I suppose one of them would eventually have called a
policeman if I had not intervened.
A third member of my pack was Royal, a fat King Charles, who always
made me wish I had eyes in the back of my head. He was the veriest
dawdle that ever existed, and was possessed with the idea that
whoever took him out was walking too fast, and that it was his duty
to protest against such haste; therefore, no matter how slowly one
went, he was sure to lag far behind. His dilatoriness was especially
provoking, because of his being so handsome and well-bred as to be
unusually attractive to dog-stealers; and many a collision have I had
with other street passengers in consequence of walking backwards so
as not to lose sight of that precious animal.
I come next to Sue, a spaniel of inordinate appetite, who, like
Royal, kept me in a continual state of alarm during her walks lest
she should be stolen. As she _never_ thought she had had enough to
eat, she was sure to follow any one who carried food, and would also
constantly stop to sniff about in the gutter in search of something
to satisfy her cravings; for she was not in the least dainty, and
devoured everything edible with relish. She was a shocking thief,
too; and now and then, before I could stop her, she would manage to
whip a beef-steak or mutton-chop off some butcher's tray that had
been left unguarded by the area-rails whilst the butcher was below
enjoying a gossip with the cook. On these occasions I felt a little
puzzled how to act. To let Sue carry off her prize quietly would be
robbing the butcher, and I did not want to be dishonest if I could
help it. Yet, if the man knew what had happened, he would probably
make a bother and claim damages, and I did not want that either. So I
adopted the middle course of running after Sue, taking the meat from
her and restoring it to the tray, and getting clear off from the
spot as quickly as possible before the return of the owner. This
arrangement seemed to me fair to all parties, as it saved me from
unpleasantness, and, at the same time, did no wrong to the butcher.
No doubt his customers would not buy the meat if they knew it had
been in the dog's mouth, and would declare it to be disgusting and
uneatable; but then the idea is everything in matters of taste; and
as the little accident with Sue would be unknown, the meat would be
eaten without a qualm, and was therefore undeteriorated in value, I
argued; for I was sure it was not _really_ any the worse. Sue often
aggravated me also in respect of poor working men eating an _al
fresco_ breakfast or dinner. As soon as ever she saw one of these
men, off she would go, and sit up on her hind-legs in front of him,
begging with glistening eyes, slobbering mouth, and an eagerness that
might have made one think she was starving, if her sleek sides had
not told a different tale. Her beseeching face and manner generally
produced an effect, and I have seen many a man, who looked ill able
to afford a morsel out of his scanty meal, throw her a scrap. I
always interfered with this little game of hers, and prevented her
from being given anything if I could get to the spot in time; for I
felt quite ashamed to be in charge of an evidently well-fed dog like
her, who went sponging upon poor people who probably had not enough
for themselves--I almost wondered she had not too much self-respect
to do it.
Chose was a light-hearted French poodle, with a strong taste for
sport, which had, unluckily, never been developed in the right
direction. Sheep appeared to him to be quite legitimate game, and he
never could see them without trying to sneak off in their direction,
with a drooping tail and general air of depression, which may have
been caused by a consciousness of wrongdoing, or else by fear of
being recalled before he was out of reach, and thus deprived of the
_chasse_ on which his heart was set. As for birds, he considered all
to be fair game alike, and rushed madly after any feathered creature
that was sitting or running on the ground, or flying low anywhere
near him. Repeated failure did not discourage him; he evidently
believed it to be his mission to catch birds, and dashed off
accordingly in frantic pursuit of rooks, swallows, chaffinches,
sparrows, and other birds on the wing, though he had no more chance
of catching them than he had of jumping over the moon. This was all
very well when he hunted wild birds that could fly away; but it was a
more serious matter when poultry were concerned, and the scrapes he
got into with ducks and chickens in the course of his career would
require a chapter to enumerate.
Finally, I come to Jumbo, a diminutive terrier, with a mania for
digging, who was the abomination of all the gardeners in his
neighbourhood. Soft, freshly-turned earth was an irresistible
temptation to him; and if not watched carefully, he was sure to slip
off to the nearest flower-bed in park, square, or garden, and there
dig gigantic graves in a surprisingly short space of time. I expect
he thought that, considering what a lot of moles, rabbits, rats, and
mice had holes underground, he must infallibly light upon some one of
these creatures at last, if he persevered in his researches long
enough. He had also a weakness for flowers, and liked to pick them
for himself; so, altogether, I don't wonder he was not loved by
gardeners, one of whom once remarked to me indignantly:
"That 'ere dawg o' yourn is the werry wusstest little beast I
ever see! I'd just like to take and give 'im to one o' them 'ere
willysectin doctors, _that_ I would!"
Well, those six dogs gave me a good bit of trouble in one way or
other, no doubt; and all the more because their mistress spoilt them,
and did not try to get them out of their bad ways, and they were not
with me long enough for me to be able to undo the effect of her
spoiling. But they amused me and I liked them, notwithstanding their
troublesomeness; and when I went near them it pleased me to hear the
thump thump of tails against the ground, which showed that I was
welcome.
The Torwoods kept no indoor man-servant except the butler already
mentioned, who rejoiced in the name of Eliezer Scroggins; and as he
was a respectable, steady-going married man, I found, to my great
satisfaction, that I was in no danger of suffering from persecutions
like those of the detestable Perkins. I got on very well with
Scroggins, and was often amused by his peculiarities; for he was (as
I had guessed at first) somewhat of a character, though a very good
sort of fellow, for all that. His prejudices were very strong, and
he was sure to cling with pigheaded obstinacy to whatever idea he had
taken into his head. I soon discovered that amongst his pet aversions
were people who, in his opinion, gave themselves airs, and presumed
to push their way up to a station above that in which they had been
born. Such people he hated as he hated stairs--perhaps more; and no
matter whether they moved in his mistress's sphere of life or his
own, they irritated him as the proverbial red rag does the bull.
Indeed, I rather suspect that he sometimes had premeditated accidents
when any of these objects of his dislike were dining at the Torwoods,
and that any visitor of theirs who was considered by him to be what
he called a "parvenyoo" was not at all unlikely to receive a bath of
soup, sauce, tea, coffee, or wine, or to suffer from some similar
misadventure, caused by the intentional clumsiness of the butler.
His bitterness on the subject of people who had risen above their
natural position was so great that I had little doubt of there being
some particular reason for it; and idle curiosity moved me to try and
find out what that reason was, though I never for an instant supposed
that the history could be one in any way specially concerning _me_.
However, he did not choose to confide his private family affairs to a
complete stranger; and so, though he dropped occasional dark hints,
whence I concluded that he had a step-sister whom he detested, yet it
was not till I had been nearly a year in Mrs. Torwood's service that
I at last was permitted to know the cause of his inveterate spite
against the whole race of parvenus.
His mother, it appeared, had been twice married, and he was her child
by the second marriage. Her first husband was a clerk named Brown,
who had died before he was thirty, leaving only one child, a daughter
named Mary. He had had rather exalted ideas about education, and had
no opinion of home teaching, and consequently had sent his daughter
to a cheap boarding-school as soon as ever she was old enough to
leave home.
After Brown's death his young widow had married into a social
position a shade below that of the clerk, and become the spouse of a
grocer in the East End, named Joshua Scroggins, to whom in due time
she presented my friend Eliezer, and sundry other children.
On the second marriage the grocer, a good-hearted conscientious man,
had declared that it would be a shame for her daughter Mary not to
have the same education as her own father would have given her, so he
generously went on paying for her at the school where she had been
already placed. Here the girl picked up a fair education, and also
many ridiculous and fine ideas. She took to spell her name with an
"e" at the end; would sooner have died than let her school-fellows
know that she was connected with a small retail shopkeeper bearing a
name so odiously vulgar as Scroggins; and brooded over the grievance
of having so unpresentable a step-father, until she became convinced
he had done her a mortal injury by marrying her mother, and got into
the habit of disliking and despising him in spite of the kindness and
liberality with which he always treated her. Now Scroggins was an
honest hard-working man, who minded his shop in person, with the
assistance of his wife and children; though he had managed to defray
Mary's schooling, yet the expense had now and then pressed on him a
little heavily, and he had not the least intention of keeping her as
an idle fine lady when she left school for good and came to live at
home, but expected her to take her turn in the shop, as the rest of
the household did. Her disgust at this was intense, and she showed it
by doing her work as badly as she dared, scolding and flouncing about
the house, and losing no opportunity of making herself generally
disagreeable.
The Scroggins family--consisting of father and mother, and four
children, of whom my friend Eliezer was the eldest--had hitherto
lived in unbroken peace and harmony, and now groaned sorely under the
infliction of the new-comer, with her airs and graces and tantrums.
The recollection of her being fatherless kept them from resenting her
nonsense as it deserved, and made them more gentle and patient with
her than they would perhaps have been otherwise; but it was felt by
all to be a blessed relief when the disturbing element was removed by
marriage to a city gent. He was in business, but did not keep a shop,
and so she graciously condescended to accept him as a means of escape
from the intolerable humiliation of serving behind her step-father's
counter. The city gent proved a good speculation. A few lucky
ventures gave him a rise in the world; and when, in the course of
years, he left her a widow, her social position was very considerably
better than it had been when she first became his wife. By the time
he died, all intercourse between her and the Scrogginses had long
been at an end. Though she had not hesitated to receive a dowry from
her step-father, yet she had never evinced the smallest gratitude for
that, or any of the numerous other benefits he had bestowed upon her.
On the contrary, she took no trouble to conceal her aversion to him;
declared that vulgarity was necessarily attached to such a name as
Scroggins; and, after her marriage, saw less and less of the family,
and rudely checked all friendly advances on their part, till at last
she succeeded in altogether cutting the connection. Mrs. Scroggins--a
peace-loving, kindly soul, who could not bear to be mixed up in any
kind of dissension--was grieved by this, and by the separation from
her daughter, though it was no fault of hers, and she could not
possibly help it. But she bore no malice, and when the news came of
her son-in-law's death, she thought only of her daughter's present
distress, and forgot the many slights and insults that had been cast
upon her and hers. Full of unaffected hearty sorrow and sympathy, she
set off immediately to visit the bereaved Mary, hoping to be able to
comfort her and be of use to her. What took place on the occasion of
this visit Eliezer never exactly knew. But he knew well that the
reception of his good-hearted and forgiving mother must have been
both unseemly and unpleasant, when he saw her return home in tears,
thoroughly upset, and saying that she could not have believed any
woman would have behaved so rudely to her own mother; and that,
unless she was sent for, she would _never_ again try to see Mary.
This had made a deep impression on Eliezer, who adored his mother;
and the bitter enmity he had ever since cherished against the person
who had treated her so badly, and whom he regarded as an upstart, had
extended to the whole race of "parvenyoos."
"Do you know what has become of your step-sister?" I asked carelessly;
"and do you ever see her?"
"See 'er!" he ejaculated wrathfully; "not if I knows it. I'm none so
fond of raising my corruption by looking at what I 'ates! But I 'ears
tell on 'er now and agin; she married some swell with a 'andle to 'is
name some years back. Mary Grove's clever enough--you may trust 'er
to do well for 'erself wherehever she is."
In telling his tale he had not before mentioned the name of his
step-sister's husband; but when he spoke of Mary Grove, I pricked up
my ears with a sudden recollection that that had been the name of my
step-mother. "Was Grove the name of the city gent?" I enquired
eagerly.
Scroggins nodded.
"Had they any children?" I continued.
"A couple o' gals named Jane and Margret there was," he returned; "I
don't know what they be like now, for I ain't seen 'em--not since
they was little mites o' things."
Jane and Margaret! these had been the names of my step-sisters, and
I felt almost sure that his step-sister and my step-mother must be
one and the same person. One more question would make the matter
absolutely certain, so I said: "What was the name of Mary Grove's
second husband--do you know it?"
"Oh yes, I knows it; but I can't lay tongue to it at this moment.
What hever is it now? Sir Hanthony something or other--I should know
it if I was to 'ear it."
"Was it anything like----" I began, and then paused. Never once had
my own name passed my lips since I left home, and somehow now, when I
tried to say it, it seemed to stick in my throat. Overcoming this
feeling, however, I completed my sentence--"like Trecastle?" It was
strange how, in spite of my first hesitation about uttering the word,
yet when once it was out, my tongue clung lovingly to it, and I
should have liked to repeat it over and over again. I thought it
sounded better than any other name I had ever heard, and felt a
thrill of pride to think that it was mine by right.
"That's the very thing!" he exclaimed triumphantly; "Sir Hanthony
Trecassel, and I wishes 'im joy of 'is bargain! 'Ow hever did you
come to think of 'im?"
"Oh, I had heard of a Sir Anthony Trecastle before," I replied, "and
so when you started me with the first name, the second suggested
itself quite naturally."
Here our conversation was interrupted, and I retired to meditate
complacently on the means of being revenged on my step-mother, which
fortune had so kindly thrown in my way. There was nothing _really_
to be ashamed of in such a connection as the Scrogginses, who were
evidently highly respectable and excellent individuals. Yet few
people in society would altogether enjoy having a mother named
Scroggins, who sold soap and tallow candles in the East End; and,
least of all, the former Mary Brown, who had striven so indefatigably
and successfully to cut herself free from every trace of the grocer's
shop. It would be gall and wormwood to her to have her secret
revealed; and I chuckled with delight to think that it had fallen
into my hands, and that the whole world would know it when I chose.
But I would not be in too great a hurry with my vengeance. I
would take time about it--prolong her torment by keeping her in
suspense, and letting her see the blow coming before it actually
fell. Therefore I commenced operations by posting to her an
anonymous letter in a feigned hand, stating that the writer was
a benevolent individual to whom the spectacle of domestic discord
was inexpressibly shocking, and who was much inclined to undertake
the good work of endeavouring to bring about a public reconciliation
between the Scrogginses and one of their family who had long been
estranged from them.
This would suffice to alarm her and make her anxious as to what the
writer's real intentions were. Perhaps she would think he meant only
to extort money--from which idea her parsimonious soul would shrink
with horror; or perhaps she would think that he meant to execute his
threat, which she would regard as a still more terrible possibility.
Either way she would be made miserable, and so my object would be
gained.
After leaving some weeks for the digestion of this missive, I
despatched another, stating that the writer considered it part of a
wife's duty to introduce her husband to her parents; and that if any
wife failed to perform that duty, it behoved some one else to do it
in her place.
This I presently followed by a third and still more menacing letter,
so as continually to increase her terrors, and keep her perpetually
with a sword hanging over her head. At every epistle I sent off I
gloated over the thought of the state of disquietude in which she
must be; and as I remembered how uncomfortable she had once made me,
I regretted that I could not be present when the letters arrived, so
as to have the pleasure of seeing my shafts take effect and wound
her. The execution of the threats should come soon, I thought. My
intention was to play with her and keep her on tenterhooks for a
while, and then to send anonymous letters containing information of
her antecedents to my father, his family, the county people, and
others with whom she had formerly been intimate. I should of course
give the address of the Scroggins' shop, so that it would be easy for
the recipients of the letters to verify my statement if they cared to
do so; and there could be little doubt that all her bosom friends
would give themselves that much trouble, even if mere chance
acquaintances did not think it worth while. Therefore there was no
danger of the history being hushed up and kept quiet, and of her
being spared the humiliation she dreaded.
Before, however, I had brought my operations to a climax, they were
interrupted by an unforeseen event, which must be related in the next
chapter.