This is a notable couple--and have met But for some secret knavery.
--The Tanner of Tyburn.
I had now been several weeks in Paris, and I was not altogether
dissatisfied with the manner in which they had been spent. I had enjoyed
myself to the utmost, while I had, as much as possible, combined profit
with pleasure; viz. if I went to the Opera in the evening, I learned
to dance in the morning; if I drove to a soiree at the Duchesse de
Perpignan’s, it was not till I had fenced an hour at the Salon des
Assauts d’Armes; and if I made love to the duchess herself it was sure
to be in a position I had been a whole week in acquiring from my master
of the graces; in short, I took the greatest pains to complete my
education. I wish all young men who frequented the Continent for that
purpose, could say the same.
One day (about a week after the conversation with Vincent, recorded
in my last CHAPTER) I was walking slowly along one of the paths in the
Jardin des Plantes, meditating upon the various excellencies of the
Rocher de Cancale and the Duchesse de Perpignan, when I perceived a tall
man, with a thick, rough coat, of a dark colour (which I recognized long
before I did the face of the wearer) emerging from an intersecting path.
He stopped for a few moments, and looked round as if expecting some one.
Presently a woman, apparently about thirty, and meanly dressed, appeared
in an opposite direction. She approached him; they exchanged a few
words, and then, the woman taking his arm, they struck into another
path, and were soon out of sight. I suppose that the reader has already
discovered that this man was Thornton’s companion in the Bois de
Boulogne, and the hero of the Salon de Jeu, in the Palais Royal. I could
not have supposed that so noble a countenance, even in its frowns, could
ever have wasted its smiles upon a mistress of that low station to which
the woman who had met him evidently belonged. However, we all have our
little foibles, as the Frenchman said, when he boiled his grandmother’s
head in a pipkin.
I myself was, at that time, the sort of person that is always taken by
a pretty face, however coarse may be the garments which set it off; and
although I cannot say that I ever stooped so far as to become amorous of
a chambermaid, yet I could be tolerably lenient to any man under thirty
who did. As a proof of this gentleness of disposition, ten minutes after
I had witnessed so unsuitable a rencontre, I found myself following a
pretty little bourgeoise into a small sort of cabaret, which was, at
the time I speak of (and most probably still is), in the midst of the
gardens. I sat down, and called for my favourite drink of lemonade; the
little grisette, who was with an old woman, possibly her mother, and un
beau gros garcon, probably her lover, sat opposite, and began, with all
the ineffable coquetries of her country, to divide her attention between
the said garcon and myself. Poor fellow, he seemed to be very little
pleased by the significant glances exchanged over his right shoulder,
and, at last, under pretence of screening her from the draught of the
open window, placed himself exactly between us. This, however ingenious,
did not at all answer his expectations; for he had not sufficiently
taken into consideration, that I also was endowed with the power
of locomotion; accordingly I shifted my chair about three feet, and
entirely defeated the countermarch of the enemy.
But this flirtation did not last long; the youth and the old woman
appeared very much of the same opinion as to its impropriety; and
accordingly, like experienced generals, resolved to conquer by a
retreat; they drank up their orgeat--paid for it--placed the wavering
regiment in the middle, and left me master of the field. I was not,
however, of a disposition to break my heart at such an occurrence, and
I remained by the window, drinking my lemonade, and muttering to myself,
“After all, women are a great bore.”
On the outside of the cabaret, and just under my window, was a bench,
which for a certain number of sous, one might appropriate to the entire
and unparticipated use of one’s self and party. An old woman (so at
least I suppose by her voice, for I did not give myself the trouble of
looking, though, indeed as to that matter, it might have been the
shrill treble of Mr. Howard de Howard) had been hitherto engrossing this
settlement with some gallant or other. In Paris, no women are too old to
get an amant, either by love or money. In a moment of tenderness, this
couple paired off, and were immediately succeeded by another. The first
tones of the man’s voice, low as they were, made me start from my seat.
I cast one quick glance before I resumed it. The new pair were the
Englishman I had before noted in the garden, and the female companion
who had joined him.
“Two hundred pounds, you say?” muttered the man; “we must have it all.”
“But,” said the woman, in the same whispered voice, “he says, that he
will never touch another card.”
The man laughed. “Fool,” said he, “the passions are not so easily
quelled--how many days is it since he had this remittance from England?”
“About three,” replied the woman.
“And it is absolutely the very last remnant of his property?”
“The last.”
“I am then to understand, that when this is spent there is nothing
between him and beggary?”
“Nothing,” said the woman, with a half sigh.
The man laughed again, and then rejoined in an altered tone, “Then, then
will this parching thirst be quenched at last. I tell you, woman, that
it is many months since I have known a day--night--hour, in which my
life has been as the life of other men. My whole soul has been melted
down into one burning, burning thought. Feel this hand--ay, you may well
start--but what is the fever of the frame to that within?”
Here the voice sunk so low as to be inaudible. The woman seemed as if
endeavouring to sooth him; at length she said--“But poor Tyrrell--you
will not, surely, suffer him to die of actual starvation?”
The man paused for a few moments, and then replied--“Night and day, I
pray to God, upon my bended knees, only one unvarying, unceasing prayer,
and that is--‘When the last agonies shall be upon that man--when, sick
with weariness, pain, disease, hunger, he lies down to die--when the
death-gurgle is in the throat, and the eye swims beneath the last dull
film--when remembrance peoples the chamber with Hell, and his cowardice
would falter forth its dastard recantation to Heaven--then--may I be
there?”
There was a long pause, only broken by the woman’s sobs, which she
appeared endeavouring to stifle. At last the man rose, and in a tone
so soft that it seemed literally like music, addressed her in the most
endearing terms. She soon yielded to their persuasion, and replied to
them with interest. “Spite of the stings of my remorse,” she said,
“as long as I lose not you, I will lose life, honour, hope, even soul
itself!”
They both quitted the spot as she said this.
O, that woman’s love! how strong is it in its weakness! how beautiful in
its guilt!