CADMEIAN VICTORY
Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself were
in London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if it should
prove needful. Before leaving Bruntsea I had written briefly to Lord
Castlewood, telling him that important matters had taken me away from
Shoxford, and as soon as I could explain them, I would come and tell him
all about it. This was done only through fear of his being annoyed at my
independence.
From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and again
I observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to match his wits
against a cabman's. “A regular muff, this time,” he said, as he jerked
up and down with his usual delight in displaying great knowledge of
London; “no sport to be had out of him. Why, he stared at me when I said
'Rosamond Street,' and made me stick on 'Clerkenwell.' Now here he is
taking us down Snow Hill, when he should have been crossing Smithfield.
Smithfield, cabby, Smithfield!”
“Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;” and he turned the
poor horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number of
barriers. “No thoroughfare,” “No thoroughfare,” on all hands stretched
across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till he came to the
brink of a precipice. The horse seemed quite ready, like a Roman, to
leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than his present mode of
life, till a man with a pickaxe stopped him.
“What are you at?” cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing except
his fright. “Erema, untie my big rattan. Quick--quick--”
“Captain,” said the cabman, coolly, “I must have another shilling for
this job. A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders. You knows Lunnon
so much better. Smiffle stopped--new railway--new meat market--never
heered of that now, did you?”
“You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office.”
“Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain. Five pun' fine for you,
when we gets there. Hold on inside, old gentleman. Kuck, kuck, Bob, you
was a hunter once. It ain't more than fifty feet deep, my boy.”
“Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round! If your neck is
forfeit, you rogue, mine is not. I never was so taken in in my life!”
Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we retreated humbly,
and the driver looked in at us with a gentle grin. “And I thought he was
so soft, you know! Erema, may I swear at him?”
“On no account,” I said. “Why, after all, it is only a shilling, and the
loss of time. And then, you can always reflect that you have discharged,
as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a vile system.”
“Protesting is very well, when it pays,” the Major answered, gloomily;
“but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes.”
This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
him for eight-pence more. “Four parcels on the roof, Captain,” he said,
looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning his extra
shilling. “Twopence each under new hact, you know. Scarcely thought a
hofficer would 'a tried evasion.”
“You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a countryman!
I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license marked. Erema, pay
the thief; it is more than I can do.”
“Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for scurrilous
language, as the hact directs. Ah, you do right to be driven to a pawn
shop.”
Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, “Never tie up my
rattan again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to
stop on my own manor!”
“I pray you to disdain such low impudence,” I said, for I could not bear
to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him into it.
“You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have heard you
say.”
“Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could not
afford to pay the rogues. That makes me feel it so bitterly, so loftily,
and so righteously. To be treated like this, when I think of all my
labors for the benefit of the rascally human race! my Institute, my
Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and Christian Young Men's
something. There is no institution, after all, to be compared to the
tread-mill.”
Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a little
sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black
door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while
I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true
peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And
thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely
sheathed with silk.
Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without
action, and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to his
equanimity. And I thought that our female breath falls short for the
very opposite reason--when we do too much and talk too little; which
happily seldom happens.
He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and decision.
And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him miserably,
and longing that his wife was there, through that very sad
one-and-eightpence, when he pulled out a key, which he always carried
as signer and lord of Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall, which had
survived lock, door, and walls by centuries, and therewith struck a door
which must have reminded that key of its fine old youth.
Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a young
man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major Hockin at
once, and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop. Here were many
wheels and plates and cylinders revolving by energy of a strap which
came through the floor and went through the ceiling. And the young man
told us to be careful how we walked, for fear of getting entangled.
Several men, wearing paper caps and aprons of leather or baize, were
sitting doing dextrous work, no doubt, and doing it very easily, and the
master of them all was hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom
does at a horse. Then seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a
leather upon his large lens, and came and took us to a little side room.
“Are you not afraid to leave them?” asked the Major. “They may secrete
some gems, Mr. Handkin.”
“Never,” said the lapidary, with some pride. “I could trust these men
with the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I believe, than
it was done by the Hollanders. But we don't get the chance to do much in
diamonds, through the old superstition about Amsterdam, and so on. No,
no; the only thing I can't trust my men about is to work as hard when
I am away as when I am there. And now, Sir, what can I do for you? Any
more Bruntsea pebbles? The last were not worth the cutting.”
“So you said; but I did not think so. We have some agates as good as
any from Aberystwith or Perthshire. But what I want now is to open this
case. It must be done quite privately, for a most particular reason. It
does open, doesn't it? I am sure it does.”
“Certainly it opens,” Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with
anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers engrained
with corundum. “I could open it in one instant, but the enamel might
fly. Will you risk it?”
The Major looked at me, and I said, “Oh no; please not to risk any
thing, if any slower process will do it without risk. We want it done
without injury.”
“Then it will cost a good bit,” he replied. “I can open it for five
shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must charge
five pounds.”
“Say three,” cried the Major. “Well, then, say four guineas: I have a
lot of work in store for you.”
“I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures,” the lapidary
answered. “There is only one other man in London who knows the secret of
this enamel, and he is my brother. They never make such enamel now. The
art is lost, like that of the French paste of a hundred years ago,
which almost puzzles even me until I go behind it. I will give you
my brother's address if you like; but instead of five pounds, he will
charge you ten guineas--if it must be done in private. Without that
condition, I can do it for two pounds. You wish to know why that should
make such a difference. Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of
the job, it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief
work-room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp
eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the afternoon,
but not without their wages. That alone would go far toward the
difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs in hand, and
waste of power, and so on. I have asked you too little, Major Hockin, I
assure you; but having said, I will stick to it, although I would much
rather you would let me off.”
“I have known you for many years,” the Major answered--“ever since you
were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals. You would
have done a lot of work for five pounds then. But I never knew you
overcharge for any thing. We agree to your terms, and are obliged to
you. But you guarantee no damage?”
“I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may be,
and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive--which is not very
probable--should not know that it had been meddled with.”
“Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about it
which I may try to go on with afterward. And for that it is essential to
have no symptom that it ever has been opened. What are these brilliants
worth, Mr. Handkin?”
“Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare say
they cost three hundred. And the portrait is worth another hundred, if I
find on the back the marks I expect.”
“You do not mean to say that you know the artist?” I could not help
exclaiming, though determined not to speak. “Oh, then, we shall find out
every thing!”
“Erema, you are a--well, you are a silly!” Major Hockin exclaimed, and
then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my lapse
pass. But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to be calling
down to some one far below. “Now mind what you say,” the Major whispered
to me, just as if he were the essence of discretion.
“The work-room is clear now,” Mr. Handkin said; “the fellows were
delighted to get their afternoon. Now you see that I have to take off
this hoop, and there lies the difficulty. I could have taken out the
gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply cutting it.
But the locket would never have been quite the same, though we put a
new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the tool might flaw
the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the make of this thing is
peculiar. Now first I submit the rim or verge, without touching the
brilliants, mind you, to the action of a little preparation of my own--a
gentle but penetrative solvent. You are welcome to watch me; you will be
none the wiser; you are not in the trade, though the young lady looks as
if she would make a good polisher. Very well: if this were an ordinary
closure, with two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed
into the adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it. But
this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved surfaces,
formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most reluctantly,
or, indeed, not at all, without too long application. For that, then,
another kind of process is needful, and we find it in frictional
heat applied most gradually and judiciously. For that I must have a
buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed to a nicety, and that
wheel I only have in this room. Now you see why I sent the men away.”
Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my power
to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful. Major Hockin,
according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient, and even
went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed against
cabmen. But I was content to wait and watch, having always heard and
thought that good work will not do itself, but must have time and
skill to second it. And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms, and fingers
beautifully, put the same thought into words.
“Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all the
time knows well that it will take long to undo. Here it comes undone at
last!”
As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
“Done it, eh? Well, you are a clever fellow. Now don't look inside it;
that is no part of your business, nor mine either, unless this young
lady desires it. Hand it to her first, my friend.”
“Wait half a minute,” said the lapidary; “it is so far opened that the
hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools. The lady
may lift it then with care. I have done this job as a piece of fine art;
I have no wish to see any more of it.”
“Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman. I thought that
I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me.”
“Well, Major Hockin,” the lapidary answered, “I beg your pardon, if I
said harm. But a man doing careful and skilled work--and skilled work
it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness, while you
walked off--he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he would fight his
own brother to maintain it.”
“Very well, very well. Let us come away. I always enter into every
body's feelings. I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you had laid
them open on that blessed wheel. My insight has always been remarkable.
Every one, without exception, says that of me. Now come away, come
away--will you never see?”
Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I could
not help being sorry for the way in which the man of art, after all his
care, was ground down by his brother Cornishman. However, he had lived
long enough in the world to feel no surprise at ingratitude.
Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very
good) began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London,
and then, with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened hoop. A
smell of mustiness--for smells go through what nothing else can--was
the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved the disk of gold, I
found a piece of vellum. This was doubled, and I opened it, and read, in
small clear writing:
“May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only child
of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
“CASTLEWOOD.
“(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE.”
There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps of
hair tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory, bearing on the
back some anagram, probably that of the artist.
Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes, chances,
and adventures which always seem strange (when I come to look back), but
never surprised me at the moment. Indeed, I might almost make bold to
pronounce that not many persons of my age and sex have been visited,
wholly against their own will, by such a series of incidents, not to say
marvelous, but at any rate fairly to be called unusual. And throughout
them perhaps it will be acknowledged by all who have cared to consider
them, that up to the present time I did not fail more than themselves
might have done in patience. And in no description of what came to
pass have I colored things at all in my own favor--at least so far as
intention goes--neither laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often
would have done me a world of good.
But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very sadly.
Why, if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major Hockin
correct as well, it came to no less than this, that my own dear father
was a base-born son, and I had no right to the name I was so proud of!
If, moreover, as I now began to dream, that terrible and mysterious
man did not resemble my father so closely without some good reason,
it seemed too likely that he might be his elder brother and the proper
heir.
This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse
assailed me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs. Strouss's
best bed, which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons, or others whom
she loved to call “international notorieties.” Having none of these now,
she assigned me that bed after hearing all I had to say, and not making
all that she might have done of it, because of the praise that would
fall to Mrs. Busk.
However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of “the
poor old lord.” He might have carried on, for all she could tell, with
many wives before his true one--a thing she heard too much of; but
as for the Captain not being his true son and the proper heir to the
peerage, let any one see him walk twice, and then have a shadow of a
doubt about it! This logic pleased but convinced me not, and I had to go
to bed in a very unhappy, restless, and comfortless state of mind.
I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while I
could not even try to sleep. One of them--and a loyal daughter could
scarcely have a worse one--was that my own dear father, knowing Lord
Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and
through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and
children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the
truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first
beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous
loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a
homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might
have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment of the
family disgrace.