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MADAME MIDAS
Fergus Hume
PROLOGUE
CAST UP BY THE SEA
A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories jutting
out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury of the waves, which dashed
furiously in sheets of seething foam against the iron rocks. Two of
these headlands ran out for a considerable distance, and at the base of
each, ragged cruel-looking rocks stretched still further out into the
ocean until they entirely disappeared beneath the heaving waste of
waters, and only the sudden line of white foam every now and then
streaking the dark green waves betrayed their treacherous presence to
the idle eye. Between these two headlands there was about half a mile of
yellow sandy beach on which the waves rolled with a dull roar, fringing
the wet sands with many coloured wreaths of sea-weed and delicate
shells. At the back the cliffs rose in a kind of semi-circle, black and
precipitous, to the height of about a hundred feet, and flocks of white
seagulls who had their nests therein were constantly circling round, or
flying seaward with steadily expanded wings and discordant cries. At the
top of these inhospitable-looking cliffs a line of pale green betrayed
the presence of vegetation, and from thence it spread inland into
vast-rolling pastures ending far away at the outskirts of the bush,
above which could be seen giant mountains with snow-covered ranges. Over
all this strange contrast of savage arid coast and peaceful upland there
was a glaring red sky--not the delicate evanescent pink of an ordinary
sunset--but a fierce angry crimson which turned the wet sands and dark
expanse of ocean into the colour of blood. Far away westward, where
the sun--a molten ball of fire--was sinking behind the snow-clad peaks,
frowned long lines of gloomy clouds--like prison bars through which the
sinking orb glowed fiercely. Rising from the east to the zenith of the
sky was a huge black cloud bearing a curious resemblance to a gigantic
hand, the long lean fingers of which were stretched threateningly out
as if to grasp the land and drag it back into the lurid sea of blood;
altogether a cruel, weird-looking scene, fantastic, unreal, and bizarre
as one of Dore’s marvellous conceptions. Suddenly on the red waters
there appeared a black speck, rising and falling with the restless
waves, and ever drawing nearer and nearer to the gloomy cliffs and sandy
beach. When within a quarter of a mile of the shore, the speck resolved
itself into a boat, a mere shallop, painted a dingy white, and much
battered by the waves as it tossed lightly on the crimson waters. It had
one mast and a small sail all torn and patched, which by some miracle
held together, and swelling out to the wind drew the boat nearer to the
land. In this frail craft were two men, one of whom was kneeling in the
prow of the boat shading his eyes from the sunlight with his hands and
gazing eagerly at the cliffs, while the other sat in the centre with
bowed head, in an attitude of sullen resignation, holding the straining
sail by a stout rope twisted round his arm. Neither of them spoke a word
till within a short distance of the beach, when the man at the
look-out arose, tall and gaunt, and stretched out his hands to the
inhospitable-looking coast with a harsh, exulting laugh.
‘At last,’ he cried, in a hoarse, strained voice, and in a foreign
tongue; ‘freedom at last.’
The other man made no comment on this outburst of his companion, but
kept his eyes steadfastly on the bottom of the boat, where lay a small
barrel and a bag of mouldy biscuits, the remnants of their provisions on
the voyage.
The man who had spoken evidently did not expect an answer from his
companion, for he did not even turn his head to look at him, but stood
with folded arms gazing eagerly ahead, until, with a sudden rush, the
boat drove up high and dry on the shore, sending him head-over-heels
into the wet sand. He struggled to his feet quickly, and, running up the
beach a little way, turned to see how his companion had fared. The
other had fallen into the sea, but had picked himself up, and was busily
engaged in wringing the water from his coarse clothing. There was a
smooth water-worn boulder on the beach, and, seeing this, the man who
had spoken went up to it and sat down thereon, while his companion,
evidently of a more practical turn of mind, collected the stale biscuits
which had fallen out of the bag, then, taking the barrel carefully on
his shoulder, walked up to where the other was sitting, and threw both
biscuits and barrel at his feet.
He then flung himself wearily on the sand, and picking up a biscuit
began to munch it steadily. The other drew a tin pannikin from the bosom
of his shirt, and nodded his head towards the barrel, upon which the
eater laid down his biscuit, and, taking up the barrel, drew the bung,
and let a few drops of water trickle into the tin dish. The man on the
boulder drank every drop, then threw the pannikin down on the sand,
while his companion, who had exhausted the contents of the barrel,
looked wolfishly at him. The other, however, did not take the slightest
notice of his friend’s lowering looks, but began to eat a biscuit and
look around him. There was a strong contrast between these two waifs of
the sea which the ocean had just thrown up on the desolate coast. The
man on the boulder was a tall, slightly-built young fellow, apparently
about thirty years of age, with leonine masses of reddish-coloured
hair, and a short, stubbly beard of the same tint. His face, pale and
attenuated by famine, looked sharp and clever; and his eyes, forming
a strong contrast to his hair, were quite black, with thin,
delicately-drawn eyebrows above them. They scintillated with a peculiar
light which, though not offensive, yet gave anyone looking at him an
uncomfortable feeling of insecurity. The young man’s hands, though
hardened and discoloured, were yet finely formed, while even the coarse,
heavy boots he wore could not disguise the delicacy of his feet. He was
dressed in a rough blue suit of clothes, all torn and much stained by
sea water, and his head was covered with a red cap of wool-work which
rested lightly on his tangled masses of hair. After a time he tossed
aside the biscuit he was eating, and looked down at his companion with
a cynical smile. The man at his feet was a rough, heavy-looking fellow,
squarely and massively built, with black hair and a heavy beard of the
same sombre hue. His hands were long and sinewy; his feet--which were
bare--large and ungainly: and his whole appearance was that of a man in
a low station of life. No one could have told the colour of his eyes,
for he looked obstinately at the ground; and the expression of his
face was so sullen and forbidding that altogether he appeared to be an
exceedingly unpleasant individual. His companion eyed him for a short
time in a cool, calculating manner, and then rose painfully to his feet.
‘So,’ he said rapidly in French, waving his hand towards the frowning
cliffs, ‘so, my Pierre, we are in the land of promise; though I must
confess’--with a disparaging shrug of the shoulders--‘it certainly
does not look very promising: still, we are on dry land, and that is
something after tossing about so long in that stupid boat, with only a
plank between us and death. Bah!’--with another expressive shrug--‘why
should I call it stupid? It has carried us all the way from New
Caledonia, that hell upon earth, and landed us safely in what may turn
out Paradise. We must not be ungrateful to the bridge that carried us
over--eh, my friend?’
The man addressed as Pierre nodded an assent, then pointed towards the
boat; the other looked up and saw that the tide had risen, and that the
boat was drifting slowly away from the land.
‘It goes,’ he said coolly, ‘back again to its proper owner, I suppose.
Well, let it. We have no further need of it, for, like Caesar, we have
now crossed the Rubicon. We are no longer convicts from a French
prison, my friend, but shipwrecked sailors; you hear?’--with a sudden
scintillation from his black eyes--‘shipwrecked sailors; and I will tell
the story of the wreck. Luckily, I can depend on your discretion, as you
have not even a tongue to contradict, which you wouldn’t do if you had.’
The dumb man rose slowly to his feet, and pointed to the cliffs frowning
above them. The other answered his thought with a careless shrug of the
shoulders.
‘We must climb,’ he said lightly, ‘and let us hope the top will prove
less inhospitable than this place. Where we are I don’t know, except
that this is Australia; there is gold here, my friend, and we must get
our share of it. We will match our Gallic wit against these English
fools, and see who comes off best. You have strength, I have brains;
so we will do great things; but’--laying his hand impressively on the
other’s breast--‘no quarter, no yielding, you see!’
The dumb man nodded violently, and rubbed his ungainly hands together in
delight.
‘You don’t know Balzac, my friend,’ went on the young man in a
conversational tone, ‘or I would tell you that, like Rastignac, war
is declared between ourselves and society; but if you have not the
knowledge you have the will, and that is enough for me. Come, let us
make the first step towards our wealth;’ and without casting a glance
behind him, he turned and walked towards the nearest headland, followed
by the dumb man with bent head and slouching gait.
The rain and wind had been at work on this promontory, and their
combined action had broken off great masses of rock, which lay in rugged
confusion at the base. This offered painful but secure foothold, and
the two adventurers, with much labour--for they were weak with the
privations endured on the voyage from New Caledonia--managed to climb
half way up the cliff, when they stopped to take breath and look around
them. They were now in a perilous position, for, hanging as they were
on a narrow ledge of rock midway between earth and sky, the least slip
would have cost them their lives. The great mass of rock which frowned
above them was nearly perpendicular, yet offered here and there certain
facilities for climbing, though to do so looked like certain death. The
men, however, were quite reckless, and knew if they could get to the
top they would be safe, so they determined to attempt the rest of the
ascent.
‘As we have not the wings of eagles, friend Pierre,’ said the younger
man, glancing around, ‘we must climb where we can find foothold. God
will protect us; if not,’ with a sneer, ‘the Devil always looks after
his own.’
He crept along the narrow ledge and scrambled with great difficulty into
a niche above, holding on by the weeds and sparse grass which grew out
of the crannies of the barren crag. Followed by his companion, he went
steadily up, clinging to projecting rocks--long trails of tough grass
and anything else he could hold on to. Every now and then some seabird
would dash out into their faces with wild cries, and nearly cause them
to lose their foothold in the sudden start. Then the herbage began to
get more luxurious, and the cliff to slope in an easy incline, which
made the latter part of their ascent much easier. At last, after half an
hour’s hard work, they managed to get to the top, and threw themselves
breathlessly on the short dry grass which fringed the rough cliff. Lying
there half fainting with fatigue and hunger, they could hear, as in
a confused dream, the drowsy thunder of the waves below, and the
discordant cries of the sea-gulls circling round their nests, to which
they had not yet returned. The rest did them good, and in a short time
they were able to rise to their feet and survey the situation. In front
was the sea, and at the back the grassy undulating country, dotted here
and there with clumps of trees now becoming faint and indistinct in the
rapidly falling shadows of the night. They could also see horses and
cattle moving in the distant fields, which showed that there must be
some human habitation near, and suddenly from a far distant house which
they had not observed shone a bright light, which became to these weary
waifs of the ocean a star of hope.
They looked at one another in silence, and then the young man turned
towards the ocean again.
‘Behind,’ he said, pointing to the east, ‘lies a French prison and two
ruined lives--yours and mine--but in front,’ swinging round to the rich
fields, ‘there is fortune, food, and freedom. Come, my friend, let us
follow that light, which is our star of hope, and who knows what glory
may await us. The old life is dead, and we start our lives in this
new world with all the bitter experiences of the old to teach us
wisdom--come!’ And without another word he walked slowly down the slope
towards the inland, followed by the dumb man with his head still bent
and his air of sullen resignation.
The sun disappeared behind the snowy ranges--night drew a grey veil over
the sky as the red light died out, and here and there the stars
were shining. The seabirds sought their nests again and ceased their
discordant cries--the boat which had brought the adventurers to shore
drifted slowly out to sea, while the great black hand that rose from
the eastward stretched out threateningly towards the two men tramping
steadily onward through the dewy grass, as though it would have drawn
them back again to the prison from whence they had so miraculously
escaped.
CHAPTER I
THE PACTOLUS CLAIM
In the early days of Australia, when the gold fever was at its height,
and the marvellous Melbourne of to-day was more like an enlarged camp
than anything else, there was a man called Robert Curtis, who arrived
in the new land of Ophir with many others to seek his fortune. Mr Curtis
was of good family, but having been expelled from Oxford for holding
certain unorthodox opinions quite at variance with the accepted
theological tenets of the University, he had added to his crime by
marrying a pretty girl, whose face was her fortune, and who was born,
as the story books say, of poor but honest parents. Poverty and honesty,
however, were not sufficient recommendations in the eyes of Mr Curtis,
senior, to excuse such a match; so he promptly followed the precedent
set by Oxford, and expelled his son from the family circle. That young
gentleman and his wife came out to Australia filled with ambitious
dreams of acquiring a fortune, and then of returning to heap coals of
fire on the heads of those who had turned them out.
These dreams, however, were destined never to be realised, for within a
year after their arrival in Melbourne Mrs Curtis died giving birth to
a little girl, and Robert Curtis found himself once more alone in the
world with the encumbrance of a small child. He, however, was not a man
who wore his heart on his sleeve, and did not show much outward grief,
though, no doubt, he sorrowed deeply enough for the loss of the pretty
girl for whom he had sacrificed so much. At all events, he made up his
mind at once what to do: so, placing his child under the care of an old
lady, he went to Ballarat, and set to work to make his fortune.
While there his luck became proverbial, and he soon found himself a rich
man; but this did not satisfy him, for, being of a far-seeing nature, he
saw the important part Australia would play in the world’s history. So
with the gold won by his pick he bought land everywhere, and especially
in Melbourne, which was even then becoming metropolitan. After fifteen
years of a varied life he returned to Melbourne to settle down, and
found that his daughter had grown up to be a charming young girl, the
very image of his late wife. Curtis built a house, went in for politics,
and soon became a famous man in his adopted country. He settled a large
sum of money on his daughter absolutely, which no one, not even her
future husband, could touch, and introduced her to society.
Miss Curtis became the belle of Melbourne, and her charming face,
together with the more substantial beauties of wealth, soon brought
crowds of suitors around her. Her father, however, determined to find
a husband for her whom he could trust, and was looking for one when he
suddenly died of heart disease, leaving his daughter an orphan and a
wealthy woman.
After Mr Curtis had been buried by the side of his dead wife, the
heiress went home to her richly-furnished house, and after passing a
certain period in mourning, engaged a companion, and once more took her
position in society.
Her suitors--numerous and persistent as those of Penelope--soon returned
to her feet, and she found she could choose a husband from men of all
kinds--rich and poor, handsome and ugly, old and young. One of these,
a penniless young Englishman, called Randolph Villiers, payed her such
marked attention, that in the end Miss Curtis, contrary to the wishes of
her friends, married him.
Mr Villiers had a handsome face and figure, a varied and extensive
wardrobe, and a bad character. He, however, suppressed his real tastes
until he became the husband of Miss Curtis, and holder of the purse--for
such was the love his wife bore him that she unhesitatingly gave him
full control of all her property, excepting that which was settled on
herself by her father, which was, of course, beyond marital control. In
vain her friends urged some settlement should be made before marriage.
Miss Curtis argued that to take any steps to protect her fortune would
show a want of faith in the honesty of the man she loved, so went to the
altar and reversed the marriage service by endowing Mr Randolph Villiers
with all her worldly goods.
The result of this blind confidence justified the warnings of her
friends--for as soon as Villiers found himself in full possession of his
wife’s fortune, he immediately proceeded to spend all the money he
could lay his hands on. He gambled away large sums at his club, betted
extensively on the turf, kept open house, and finally became entangled
with a lady whose looks were much better than her morals, and whose
capacity for spending money so far exceeded his own that in two years
she completely ruined him. Mrs Villiers put up with this conduct for
some time, as she was too proud to acknowledge she had made a mistake
in her choice of a husband; but when Villiers, after spending all her
wealth in riotous living, actually proceeded to ill-treat her in order
to force her to give up the money her father had settled on her, she
rebelled. She tore off her wedding-ring, threw it at his feet, renounced
his name, and went off to Ballarat with her old nurse and the remnants
of her fortune.
Mr Villiers, however, was not displeased at this step; in fact, he was
rather glad to get rid of a wife who could no longer supply him with
money, and whose presence was a constant rebuke. He sold up the house
and furniture, and converted all available property into cash, which
cash he then converted into drink for himself and jewellery for his lady
friend. The end soon came to the fresh supply of money, and his lady
friend went off with his dearest companion, to whose purse she had taken
a sudden liking. Villiers, deserted by all his acquaintances, sank
lower and lower in the social scale, and the once brilliant butterfly
of fashion became a billiard marker, then a tout at races, and finally a
bar loafer with no visible means of support.
Meantime Mrs Villiers was prospering in Ballarat, and gaining the
respect and good opinion of everyone, while her husband was earning the
contempt of not only his former friends but even of the creatures with
whom he now associated. When Mrs Villiers went up to Ballarat after her
short but brilliant life in Melbourne she felt crushed. She had given
all the wealth of her girlish affection to her husband, and had endowed
him with all kinds of chivalrous attributes, only to find out, as many
a woman has done before and since, that her idol had feet of clay. The
sudden shock of the discovery of his baseness altered the whole of
her life, and from being a bright, trustful girl, she became a cold
suspicious woman who disbelieved in everyone and in everything.
But she was of too restless and ambitious a nature to be content with an
idle life, and although the money she still possessed was sufficient to
support her in comfort, yet she felt that she must do something, if
only to keep her thoughts from dwelling on those bitter years of
married life. The most obvious thing to do in Ballarat was to go in for
gold-mining, and chance having thrown in her way a mate of her father’s,
she determined to devote herself to that, being influenced in her
decision by the old digger. This man, by name Archibald McIntosh, was
a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, who had been in Ballarat when the
diggings were in the height of their fame, and who knew all about the
lie of the country and where the richest leads had been in the old days.
He told Mrs Villiers that her father and himself had worked together on
a lead then known as the Devil’s Lead, which was one of the richest
ever discovered in the district. It had been found by five men, who had
agreed with one another to keep silent as to the richness of the lead,
and were rapidly making their fortunes when the troubles of the Eureka
stockade intervened, and, in the encounter between the miners and the
military, three of the company working the lead were killed, and only
two men were left who knew the whereabouts of the claim and the value
of it. These were McIntosh and Curtis, who were the original holders.
Mr Curtis, went down to Melbourne, and, as previously related, died of
heart disease, so the only man left of the five who had worked the lead
was Archibald McIntosh. He had been too poor to work it himself, and,
having failed to induce any speculator to go in with him to acquire
the land, he had kept silent about it, only staying up at Ballarat and
guarding the claim lest someone else should chance on it. Fortunately
the place where it was situated had not been renowned for gold in the
early days, and it had passed into the hands of a man who used it as
pasture land, quite ignorant of the wealth which lay beneath. When Mrs
Villiers came up to Ballarat, this man wanted to sell the land, as he
was going to Europe; so, acting under the urgent advice of McIntosh, she
sold out of all the investments which she had and purchased the whole
tract of country where the old miner assured her solemnly the Devil’s
Lead was to be found.
Then she built a house near the mine, and taking her old nurse, Selina
Sprotts, and Archibald McIntosh to live with her, sank a shaft in
the place indicated by the latter. She also engaged miners, and gave
McIntosh full control over the mine, while she herself kept the books,
paid the accounts, and proved herself to be a first-class woman of
business. She had now been working the mine for two years, but as yet
had not been fortunate enough to strike the lead. The gutter, however,
proved remunerative enough to keep the mine going, pay all the men,
and support Mrs Villiers herself, so she was quite content to wait till
fortune should smile on her, and the long-looked-for Devil’s Lead turned
up. People who had heard of her taking the land were astonished at
first, and disposed to scoff, but they soon begun to admire the plucky
way in which she fought down her ill-luck for the first year of her
venture. All at once matters changed; she made a lucky speculation in
the share market, and the Pactolus claim began to pay. Mrs Villiers
became mixed up in mining matters, and bought and sold on ‘Change with
such foresight and promptitude of action that she soon began to make a
lot of money. Stockbrokers are not, as a rule, romantic, but one of
the fraternity was so struck with her persistent good fortune that he
christened her Madame Midas, after that Greek King whose touch turned
everything into gold. This name tickled the fancy of others, and in a
short time she was called nothing but Madame Midas all over the country,
which title she accepted complacently enough as a forecast of her
success in finding the Devil’s Lead, which idea had grown into a mania
with her as it already was with her faithful henchman, McIntosh.
When Mr Villiers therefore arrived in Ballarat, he found his wife
universally respected and widely known as Madame Midas, so he went to
see her, expecting to be kept in luxurious ease for the rest of his
life. He soon, however, found himself mistaken, for his wife told him
plainly she would have nothing to do with him, and that if he dared to
show his face at the Pactolus claim she would have him turned off by
her men. He threatened to bring the law into force to make her live with
him, but she laughed in his face, and said she would bring a divorce
suit against him if he did so; and as Mr Villiers’ character could
hardly bear the light of day, he retreated, leaving Madame in full
possession of the field.
He stayed, however, in Ballarat, and took up stockbroking--living a
kind of hand-to-mouth existence, bragging of his former splendour, and
swearing at his wife for what he was pleased to call--her cruelty. Every
now and then he would pay a visit to the Pactolus, and try to see her,
but McIntosh was a vigilant guard, and the miserable creature was always
compelled to go back to his Bohemian life without accomplishing his
object of getting money from the wife he had deserted.
People talked, of course, but Madame did not mind. She had tried married
life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in human nature
had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the belle of Melbourne
as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared, and the stern, clever,
cynical woman who managed the Pactolus claim was a new being called
‘Madame Midas’.