GENTLEMAN JIM
There is no reason, because a woman is coarse, hard-working, low-born,
and badly dressed, she should be without that inconvenient feminine
appendage--a heart. Dorothea trembled and turned pale when the door of
the Holborn gin-shop swung open and the man she most wished to see in
all the world stood at her side.
He would have been a good-looking fellow enough in any rank of life,
but to Dorothea, and others of her class, his clear, well-cut features
and jetty ringlets rendered him an absolute Adonis, despite the air of
half-drunken bravado and assumed recklessness which marred a naturally
resolute expression of countenance. He wore a fur cap, a velveteen
jacket, and a bright-red neckcloth, secured by an enormous ring; nor
was this remarkable costume out of character with the perfume he
exhaled, denoting he had consumed at least his share of that other
half-quartern which postponed his departure.
Dorothea slipped her arm in his, and clung to him with the fond
tenacity of a woman who loves heart and soul, poor thing, to her cost.
His manner was an admirable combination of low-class gallantry with
pitying condescension.
"Why, Doll," said he, "what's up now? You don't look hearty, my lass.
Step in and take a dram; it'll do you good."
She glanced admiringly in the comely dissipated face.
"Ah! they may well call you Gentleman Jim," she answered; "you're fit
to be a lord of the land, you are; and so you would, if I was queen.
But I doesn't want you to treat me, Jim, leastways not this turn; I
wants you to come for a walk, dear. I've a bit of news for you. It's
business, Jim," she added, somewhat ruefully, "or I wouldn't go for to
ask."
His face, which had fallen a little, assuming that wearied expression
a woman ought most to dread on the face she cares for, brightened
considerably.
"Come on, lass!" he exclaimed, "business first, and pleasure arter.
Speak up, and let's hear all about it."
They had turned from the main thoroughfare into a dark and quiet
by-street. She crossed her work-worn hands on his arm, and proceeded
nervously--
"You say I never put you on a job, Jim. Well, I've a job to put you on
now. I don't half like it, dear. It's for your sake I don't half like
it. Promise me as you'll be careful, very careful, this turn."
"Bother!" answered Jim. "Stow that, lass, and let's have it out."
Thus elegantly adjured, Doll, as he called her, obeyed without delay,
though her voice faltered and her colour faded more than once while
she went on.
"You told me as you wouldn't love me without I kep' my ears open, and
my eyes too. Well, Jim, I've watched and watched old master and young,
like a cat watches a mouse-hole, till I've been that sick and tired I
could have set down and cried. Now, to-day I wanted to see you so bad,
at any rate, and, thinks I, here's a bit of news as my Jim will like
to learn. Look now: young master, he's a-goin' to a place they call
Bragford by the five-o'clock train. O, I mind the name well enough.
You know, Jim, you always bid me take notice of names. Well, it's
Bragford. Bragford, says he, quite plain, an' as loud as I'm
a-speakin' now."
"Forty-five miles from London," answered Jim, "and not ten minutes'
walk from the branch line. Well?"
"He's a-takin' summut down for a young lady," continued Doll. "It is
but a small package, what you might put in your coat-pocket, or your
hat. O, Jim! Jim! if you should chance on a stroke of luck this turn,
won't you give the trade up for good and all? If you and me had but a
roof to cover us, I wouldn't ask better than only liberty to work for
you till I dropped."
Tears stood in her eyes, and for a moment the face that looked up
into the ruffian's was almost beautiful in its expression of entire
devotion and trust.
He had taken a doubtful cigar from his coat-pocket, and was smoking
thoughtfully.
"Small," said he, "then it ought, by rights, to be valuable. Did ye
get a feel of it, Doll, or was it only a smell?"
"He took it hisself out of the jeweller's hands," answered Doll;
"but I hadn't no call to be curious, for he told me what it was free
enough. There ain't no smell about diamonds, Jim."
"Nor you can't swear to them neither," replied Jim exultingly.
"Diamonds, Doll! you're _sure_ he said diamonds? Come, you _have_
done it, my lass. Give us a kiss, Doll, and let's turn in here at the
Sunflower, and drink good luck to the job."
The woman acceded to both proposals readily enough, but followed her
companion into the ill-favoured little tavern with a weary step and a
heavy heart. Some unerring instinct told her, no doubt, that she was
giving all and taking nothing, offering gold for silver, truth for
falsehood, love and devotion for a mere liking, rapidly waning to
indifference and contempt.
Tom Ryfe, all anxiety to find himself once more in the same county
with Miss Bruce, was in good time, we may be sure, for the train that
should carry him down to Ecclesfield. Bustling through the station to
take his ticket, he was closely followed by a well-dressed person in
a pair of blue spectacles, travelling apparently without luggage or
impediments of any description. This individual seemed also bound
for Bragford, and showed some little eagerness to travel in the
same carriage with Tom, who attributed the compliment to his
lately-constructed coat and general appearance as a swell of the first
water. "He don't often get such a chance," thought Mr. Ryfe, accepting
with extreme graciousness the other's civilities as to open windows
and change of seats. He even went so far as to take a proffered cigar
from the case of his fellow-traveller, which he would have smoked
forth-with, but for the peremptory objections of a crusty old
gentleman, who arrived at the last moment, encumbered with such a
paraphernalia of railway-rugs, travelling-bags, books, newspapers and
magazines as denoted the through-passenger, not to be got rid of at
any intermediate station. The old gentleman glared defiance, but made
himself comfortable nevertheless; and the presence of this common
enemy was a bond of union to render the two chance acquaintances more
than ordinarily cordial and communicative.
Smoking being prohibited, they had not proceeded many miles into the
country ere the gentleman in spectacles produced a box of lozenges
from his pocket, and, selecting one for his own consumption, offered
another, with much suavity, to Tom Ryfe, surveying meanwhile, with
inquisitive glances, the bulge in that gentleman's breast-pocket,
where he carried his valuable package; but here again both were
startled, not to say irritated, by the dictatorial interference of the
last arrival.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said this irrepressible old man, "I cannot
permit it. Damn me, sir!" turning full round upon Tom Ryfe, "I _won't_
permit it! I can detect the smell of chloroform in those lozenges.
Smell, sir, I've the smell of a bloodhound. I could hunt a scamp all
over England by nose--by nose, I tell you, sir, and worry him to death
when I ran into him; and I _would_ too. Now, sir, if _you_ choose to
be chloroformed, I don't. I'm not anxious to be taken out of this
compartment as stupid as an owl, and as cold as a cabbage, with a
pain in my eyes, a singing in my ears, and a scoundrel's hands in my
waistcoat-pockets. Excuse me, sir, I'm warm--I wouldn't give much for
a chap that wasn't--and I speak my mind!"
It seemed a bad speculation to quarrel with him, this big, burly,
resolute, and disagreeable old man. Tom Ryfe, for once, was at a
nonplus. He murmured a few vague sentences of dissent, while the
passenger in spectacles, consigning his lozenges to an inner pocket,
buried himself in the broad sheet of the _Times_. But it was his turn
now, and not even thus could he escape. Staring grimly at him, over
the top of the paper, his tormentor fired a point-blank question, from
which there was no refuge.
"Pray, sir," said he, "are you a chemist?"
The gentleman in spectacles signified, by a shake of the head, that
was not his profession.
"Then, sir," continued the other, "do you know anything about
chemistry--volatile essences, noxious drugs, subtle poisons? I do."
(Here Tom Ryfe observed his ally turn pale.) "Permit me to remark,
sir, that if _you_ don't, you are like a school-boy carrying a
pocketful of squibs and crackers on the fifth of November, unconscious
that a single spark may blow him into the Christmas holidays before he
can say 'knife!' Let me see those lozenges, sir--let me have them in
my hand; I'll tell you in five seconds what they're made of, and how,
and where, and why."
Here the man in spectacles, with considerable presence of mind, threw
the whole of his lozenges out of window, under cover of the _Times_.
"You frighten me, sir," said he; "I wouldn't keep such dangerous
articles about me on any consideration."
The old gentleman executed an elaborate wink, denoting extreme
satisfaction, at Tom Ryfe. "If you were going through," said he, "I
could tell you some funny stories. Queer tricks upon travellers
I've seen in my time. Why I was the first person to find out the
sinking-floor dodge in West Street. My evidence transported three
people for life, and a fourth for fifteen years. I once saw a man
pulled down by the heels through a grating in one of the busiest
streets in the City, and if I _hadn't_ seen him he would never have
come up alive. Why the police apply to me for advice many a time when
people are missing. 'Don't distress yourselves,' says I, 'they'll turn
up, never fear.' And they _do_ turn up, sir, in nineteen cases out of
twenty. In the twentieth, when there's foul play, we generally know
something about it within eight-and-forty hours. Bragford? Is it? You
get out here, do you? Good-morning, gentlemen; I hope you've enjoyed
your jaunt."
Then as Tom, collecting great-coats, newspapers, etc., followed his
new acquaintance out of the carriage, this strange old gentleman
detained him for an instant by the arm.
"Friend of yours, sir?" said he, pointing to the man in spectacles on
the platform. "Never saw him before? I thought so. Sharper, sir, I'll
take my oath of it, or something worse. I know the sort; I've exposed
hundreds of them. Take my advice, sir, and never see him again."
With that the train glided on, leaving Mr. Ryfe and the gentleman
in spectacles staring at each other over a basket of fish and a
portmanteau.
"Mad!" observed the latter, with an uneasy attempt at a laugh, and a
readjustment of his glasses.
"Mad, no doubt," answered Tom, but followed the lunatic's counsel,
nevertheless, so far as to refrain from offering the other a lift
in the well-appointed brougham, with its burly coachman, waiting to
convey him to Ecclesfield Manor, though his late fellow-traveller was
proceeding in that direction on foot.
Tom had determined to sleep at the Railway Hotel, Bragford, ere he
returned to London next day. This arrangement he considered more
respectful than an intrusion on the hospitality of Ecclesfield, should
it be offered him. Perhaps so scrupulous a regard for the proprieties
mollified Miss Bruce in his favour, and called forth an invitation
to tea in the drawing-room when he had concluded the solitary dinner
prepared for him after his journey.
Tom Ryfe was always a careful dresser. Up to forty most men are. It
is only when we have nobody to please that we become negligent of
pleasing. I believe, though, that never in his life did he tie his
neckcloth or brush his whiskers with more care than on the present
occasion in a large and dreary chamber known to the household as one
of the "best bedrooms" of Ecclesfield Manor.
Tom looked about him, with a proud consciousness that at last his foot
was on the ladder he had wanted all his life to climb. Here he stood,
actually dressing for dinner, a welcome guest in the house of an
old-established county family, on terms of confidence, if not
intimacy, with its proud and beautiful female representative, in whose
cause he was about to do battle with all the force of his intellect,
and (Tom began to think she could make him fool enough for anything)
all the resources of his purse. The old family pictures--sad daubs, or
they would never have been consigned to the bedrooms--simpered down on
him with encouraging benignity. Prim women, wearing enormously long
waists, and their heads a good deal on one side, pointed their fans
at him, while he washed his hands, with a coquetry irresistible, had
their colours only stood, combining entreaty and command; while
a jolly old boy in flowing wig, steel breast-plate, and the most
convivial of noses, smiled in his face, as who should say, "_Audaces
Fortuna juvat_!--Go in, my hearty, and win if you can!"
What was there in these surroundings, in the orderly decorum of the
well-regulated mansion, in the chiming of the stable clock, nay, in
the reflection of his own person shown by that full-length glass, to
take the starch, as it were, out of Tom's self-confidence, turning his
moral courage limp and helpless for the nonce, bringing insensibly to
his mind the familiar refrain of "Not for Joseph"? What was there that
bade him man himself against this discouragement, as true bravery mans
itself against the sensation of fear? and why should he be less worthy
of approbation than other spirits who venture on "enterprises of great
pith and moment" with beating hearts indeed, but with unflinching
courage and a dogged determination to succeed?
Had Tom been a young knight arming for a tournament, in which the good
fortune of his lance was to win him a king's daughter for his bride,
he might have claimed to be an admirable and interesting hero. Was
he, indeed, a less respectable adventurer, that for steel he had to
substitute French polish, for surcoat and corselet, broadcloth and
cambric--that the battle he was to wage must be fought out by tenacity
of purpose and ingenuity of brain, rather than strength of arm and
downright hardness of skull?
He shook a little too much scent on his handkerchief as he finished
dressing, and walked down-stairs in a state of greater agitation than
he would have liked to admit.
Dinner was soon done. Eaten in solitude with grave servants watching
every mouthful, he was glad to get it over. In a glass of brown sherry
he drank Miss Brace's health, and thus primed, followed the butler to
the drawing-room, where that lady sat working by the light of a single
lamp.
The obscurity was in his favour. Tom made his bow and accepted the
chair offered him, less awkwardly than was to be expected from the
situation.
Maud looked very beautiful with the light falling on her sculptured
chin, her fair neck, and white hands, set off by the deep shadows of
the mourning dress she wore.
I believe he was going to begin by saying "it had been a fine day,"
but she stopped him in her clear, cold voice, with its patrician
accent, so difficult to define, yet so impossible to mistake.
"I have to thank you, Mr. Ryfe, for taking such care of my jewels. I
hope the man left them at your office as he promised, and that you had
no farther trouble about them."
He wanted to say that "no errand of hers could be a trouble to him,"
but the words stuck in his throat, or she would hardly have proceeded
so graciously.
"We must go into a few matters of business this evening, if you have
got the papers you mentioned. I leave here to-morrow, and there is
little time to spare."
He produced a neatly-folded packet, docketed and carefully tied with
tape. The sight of it roused his energies, as the shaking of a guidon
rouses an old trooper. Despite of the enchantress and all her glamour,
Tom was himself again.
"Business is my trade, Miss Bruce," said he briskly. "I must ask
your earnest attention for a quarter of an hour, while I explain our
position as regards the estate. At present it appears beset with
difficulties. That's my look-out. Before we begin," added Tom, with a
diffident faltering of voice, partly natural, partly assumed, "forgive
my asking your future address. It is indispensable that we should
frequently communicate, and--and--I cannot help hoping and expressing
my hope for your happiness in the home you have chosen."
Maud's smile was very taking. She smiled with her eyes, those dark,
pleasing eyes that would have made a fool of a wiser man than Tom.
"I am going to Aunt Agatha's," she said. "I am to live with her for
good. I have no home of my own now."
The words were simple enough--spoken, too, without sadness or
bitterness as a mere abstract matter of fact, but they aroused all the
pen-and-ink chivalry in Tom's nature, and he vowed in his heart to lay
goose-quill in rest on her behalf, with the devotion of a Montmorency
or a Bayard.
"Miss Bruce," said he resolutely, "the battle is not yet lost. In our
last, of the 15th, we advised you that the other side had already
taken steps to oppose our claims. My uncle has great experience, and I
will not conceal from you that my uncle is less sanguine than myself;
but I begin to see my way, and if there is a possibility of winning,
by hook or by crook, depend upon it, Miss Bruce, win we _will_, for
our own sakes, and--and--for _yours_!"
The last two words were spoken in a whisper, being indeed a
spontaneous ebullition, but she heard them nevertheless. In her deep
sorrow, in her friendless, homeless position there was something
soothing and consolatory in the sympathy of this young man, lawyer's
clerk though he were, as she insisted with unnecessary repetition
to herself. He showed at his best, too, while explaining the legal
complications involved in the whole business, and the steps by which
he hoped eventually to succeed. Maud was too thoroughly a woman not to
admire power, and Tom's intellect possessed obviously no small share
of that quality, when directed on such matters as the present. In
half-an-hour he had furnished her with a lucid statement of the whole
case, and in half-an-hour he had inspired her with respect for
his opinion, admiration of his sagacity, and confidence in his
strength--not a bad thirty minutes' work. At its conclusion, she shook
hands with him cordially when she wished him good-night. Tom was
no fool, and knew when to venture as when to hold back. He bowed
reverentially over the white hand, muttering only--"God bless you,
Miss Bruce! If you think of anything else, at a moment's notice I will
come from the end of the world to serve you,"--and so hurried away
before she could reply.