BURGO IN A NEW CHARACTER.
Burgo Brabazon had made up his mind beforehand that if he should be
successful in meeting Miss Leslie at Twysden Court, and should find an
opportunity of unburdening his mind to her of that which he wanted to
say, he would take therewith his farewell of the pomps and vanities of
London society. Well, he had succeeded in seeing her, and in having
his say into the bargain, and as he passed out of the gates of Twysden
Court he murmured to himself with a bitter smile: "Good-bye, proud
world. From this day forth you and I are strangers. I choose to cut
you, rather than afford you the chance of cutting me."
For, indeed, it was high time for him to think seriously of putting
his hand to the plough, only, at present, he was not quite sure in
which direction to look for that useful implement, or rather, for its
latter-day equivalent.
He had been going into the question of his finances, and had found
that in hard cash he was worth a matter of between forty and fifty
pounds, that sum representing the balance of his last quarter's
allowance. He had a tolerable stock of jewellery and trinkets, which
would always fetch something should the worst come to the worst. His
uncle had discharged all his liabilities, so that his calculations
were not disturbed by any question of what he owed to others. It was
true that in the interim he had run up various little accounts with
his tailor, his bootmaker, and so on. But such trifles were not worth
a second thought. He had always accustomed his tradespeople to
waiting, and he had no wish to hurt their feelings by offering them
ready money. It was with a clear conscience that he said to himself,
"When a fellow finds himself in a fix such as I'm in now, there's
really a sort of sweet satisfaction in knowing that he doesn't owe a
shilling to a soul."
But fifty pounds, even if doled out with the most cheeseparing
economy, will not last for ever, and when the end of it should be
reached, what then? He had not forgotten "old Garden's" offer to be
his banker till brighter days should dawn; but he was by no means
inclined to accept it. "As he said, a spell of hard work will do me
good, and I'll work my fingers to the bone before I'll apply to him."
Evidently the first thing to be done was to get rid of his rooms,
which were within fifty yards of New Bond Street, and move into
lodgings which would accord better with the exiguity of his resources.
But it was requisite that he should either find a fresh tenant or give
a month's notice. Fortunately he knew a fellow who was dissatisfied
with his own "diggings," and would jump at the chance of securing his.
In the interval between his last interview with Mr. Garden and his
afternoon at Twysden Court he had had ample time to turn over a score
of different projects in his mind, each of which, however, when he
came to consider it in detail, proved to be either more or less
impracticable, or else to have certain features in connection with it
against which his somewhat fastidious taste revolted. He had spoken to
the lawyer about enlisting, but when he came to reckon up all that he
had seen and been told about life in barracks (several of his
acquaintances were military men), and to call to mind the class of
persons from whom three-fourths of the British army is recruited, the
prospect seemed to him the reverse of alluring. Could he have made
sure of being at once despatched on active service, where there would
have been a chance of promotion, he would have enlisted without
hesitation; but the thought of a dull, inglorious life in barracks and
all that was implied thereby, appalled him.
Had he but possessed the requisite capital, he would have gone out to
the States, or Australia, and after serving a couple of years to the
business, would have bought a cattle ranch or a sheep run, and have
sunk or swum by the venture. But, as we have seen, his worldly fortune
amounted to the preposterously inadequate sum of fifty pounds, all
told.
Sometimes a great longing would come over him when he thought of these
things, and a voice would seem to whisper in his ear, "What a
consummate ass you must have been to tear up your uncle's cheque!
Think of all you might have done with it. Think of----"
But at this point Burgo would jump up and begin to stamp about the
room, swearing softly to himself as he did so.
No, not if it would have made him the owner of a dozen cattle ranches,
would he have accepted Sir Everard's cheque with the conditions
attached to it.
Far rather would he starve.
It was no more than natural that at times his thoughts should revert
to his other uncle, Mr. Denis Clinton, who was only two and a half
years the junior of Sir Everard. To Burgo he was little more than a
name. Uncle and nephew had never met since the latter was quite a
child. Mr. Denis Clinton was a bachelor and a misogynist, and a miser
to boot. He had no belief in the claims of relationship, more
especially in the case of relatives to whom fortune had not proved
over kind. And that had been the hap of his sister Elinor--Burgo's
mother--who, against the wishes of her relatives, had persisted in
marrying a naval lieutenant of good family, but with no pecuniary
resources except his pay, and a private income of a hundred a year.
When, a few years later, Lieutenant Brabazon died, after a long
illness, and deeply in debt, and when his widow found it imperative on
her to appeal to her relatives for help, Denis Clinton had contented
himself with sending her a twenty pound note, coupled with an
intimation that she must not look to him for any further aid. He would
not have been the man he was if at the same time he had not told her
in the plainest possible terms that she had no one to thank for her
indigent condition but herself, and that she had brought it all on by
her own headstrong folly.
Between Sir Everard and his brother there was no love lost. They were
in every way so wholly the opposite of each other, and had been from
their boyhood, they looked at life from two such different
standpoints, that there seemed no common ground of unity between them.
They had neither seen nor held any communication with each other for
nearly a score years, nor had they any desire to do so.
Mr. Denis Clinton was the owner of a large but not very productive
property on the borders of Yorkshire and Lancashire, attached to which
was an old manor house, in which he lived a secluded and penurious
life, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." As matters stood at
present he was next heir to the title and entailed estates.
But although, in his many musings over his position, Burgo's thoughts
did occasionally revert to his Uncle Denis, it was never with any
serious intention of applying to him for the pecuniary help needed to
give him, Burgo, a fair start in life. Even if he could have
sufficiently humbled his pride to ask him--which he knew to be an
impossibility--he felt sure that his application would have been met
by a refusal. All he used to say to himself was: "If my Uncle Denis
had been a different kind of man from what he is, if he had been
another Uncle Everard, then, perhaps, I might have made known my need
to him, in which case, if he had chosen to hold out a helping hand, I
should not have turned away."
As matters fell out, his choice of a profession was ultimately
determined by accident.
One night, about eleven o'clock, as he was strolling along the Strand,
he came upon a crowd of men and boys at the corner of a side street,
congregated round a hansom cab and a couple of stalwart policemen.
Burgo was not fond of street crowds, and was proceeding to push his
way through the fringe of this one, when he heard one man say to
another, "What's the bloomin' row?" "A cabby wot's fell off his box in
a fit, and cut his 'ead open," replied the other. Then a third man
joined in, apparently a stranger to the others: "It's one of old
Hendry's 'ansoms," he said. "All that's wanted is for the cabby to get
inside his own flycatcher, and let some cove drive him home."
Burgo shouldered his way through the crowd till he had reached the
heart of it.
"What's the matter, Robert?" he inquired of one of the policemen, as
he slipped a shilling into his hand.
The man carried a finger to his helmet, but could tell him no more
than he knew already.
"You are sure his fall was not the result of drink?" queried Mr.
Brabazon.
"Sure of that, sir. I and my mate both know the man. He's a very
decent sort of fellow, and a teetotaler."
"Is he much hurt?"
"Oh, no, sir; nothing to speak of. A little bit dazed-like, as you may
see for yourself, but nothing more. Still, it's hardly safe to let him
get on the box; he might be took like it again before he got to the
yard."
"Certainly. I see that this is one of my friend Mr. Hendry's cabs, so
I tell you what you had better do. Put the man inside, and I will
drive him home to the yard." And with that he handed the constable his
card.
The police were only too glad to be thus relieved of a difficulty
which was detaining them from their more regular duties. Accordingly
the man was bundled inside, while Burgo mounted to the perch behind;
then the crowd divided to let him through, while somebody called out
for a cheer for the "toff," which was heartily responded to.
Mr. Tobias Hendry was a jobmaster and cab proprietor, well known to
Burgo, who, in the course of his career, had had many a "trap" from
him on hire--an elastic term which must be understood as including
vehicles of various kinds. The only two horses Burgo had ever owned
had been bought for him by Mr. Hendry, and when hard compulsion, in
the shape of certain racing liabilities which he found a difficulty in
meeting, had compelled him to part from them, it was "Toby H."--as he
was generally called among his intimates--who, succeeded in disposing
of them for him at a not too ruinous loss.
Mr. Hendry happened to be in the yard when Burgo drove in, but when
the flaps of the hansom were flung back and Joey Bunch, with his
ensanguined visage, stumbled out of the interior, and when, by the
light of the lamp over the stable door, he recognised the driver, his
face put on such an expression of comic perplexity that Burgo could
not help laughing aloud.
"Been up to some of your little games, Mr. Brabazon, I reckon," said
the jobmaster dryly. He was an elderly, wiry, rather undersized man,
with iron-gray hair and short side whiskers to match.
"For once you are mistaken, Mr. Hendry," replied Burgo. And therewith
he proceeded, as briefly as possible, to put the other in possession
of the facts of the case.
"I'm really very much obliged to you, Mr. Brabazon," said the
jobmaster. "It isn't every gentleman that would put himself to the
trouble you have. As for Bunch, he's the most steady-going driver I
have. I hope there's nothing serious the matter with him, but, of
course, I must have him seen by a doctor before I can let him go out
again. Yes, Mr. Brabazon, I'm _very_ much obliged to you."
"But, as it happens, it is I who want to be obliged to you, Mr.
Hendry."
"In what way can I serve you, sir?"
"If your office is empty, let us go in there for a few minutes." A
sudden resolution (at the time it seemed to him almost like an
inspiration) had come to him while he was driving Joey Bunch home.
The jobmaster led the way, and as soon as the office door was shut
behind them Burgo said: "I don't know whether you are aware that my
uncle, Sir Everard Clinton, has discarded me--cast me off--will have
nothing more to do with me. But such is the unpleasant fact. It's not
because I have kicked over the traces, or done anything to offend him,
but simply because he has taken to himself a wife half his own age
who, to serve some purpose of her own, has succeeded in poisoning his
mind and setting him against me. Now, as I have very little money, and
can't live on air, it's evident I must find work of some kind. The
worst of it is that I've been brought up to nothing, and have no
aptitude or gift of any kind. Under those circumstances what is a man
to do? That is a question, Mr. Hendry, which, if I've put to myself
once, I have a hundred times. At length I have decided that there are
only two things I can do with any degree of credit to myself or
others, and those are, riding and driving. But where's the good of
either of them to a fellow who has neither a horse nor a trap to call
his own?"
"Don't know, I'm sure, Mr. Brabazon, unless he makes use of the horses
and traps of his friends. And a good many young men do that, sir, who
are in the same predicament as yourself."
"True for you, Mr. Hendry, but I've no inclination to add one more to
their number. No, sir, what I've decided upon doing is to try to earn
my living as a hansom-cab driver, and I have come to you, Mr. Hendry,
as a man whom I've known for a number of years, to ask you to give me
a start; in other words, as our friend Joey would say, to 'put me on
the job.'"
Hendry stared at him open-mouthed for a second or two. Then he said:
"You don't seriously mean what you say, Mr. Brabazon?"
"Most seriously I do. I was never more in earnest in my life."
"Well, sir, you're not the first broken-down swell--if you'll excuse
the term--that I've known take to driving a hansom for a living, but
they have mostly been of a different quality from you. Still, needs
must when a certain person drives. I don't suppose starving's any
pleasanter to a man that's had a college education, than to one who
can neither read nor write. If you like to look me up at eleven
to-morrow forenoon, Mr. Brabazon, I may have something to say to you."
Burgo did not fail to keep the appointment, and the result was that on
the following Monday morning, having in the interim taken out a
license in due form at Scotland Yard, he started in his new career. It
appeared that Mr. Hendry had just become the owner of a hansom which
had been the property of a medical man. It was what the jobmaster
himself termed "a real elegant turn-out," and he was only too pleased
to have secured such a man as Mr. Brabazon to drive it. Into its
shafts he put a half-blood mare, which he had bought a bargain,
because she had once come down on her knees when her former owner, a
very nervous old gentleman, was taking his constitutional in the Park.
By this time Burgo had vacated his rooms off New Bond Street for a
much more unpretentious domicile no great distance from Mr. Hendry's
yard. He had written Mr. Garden a half-cynical, half-humorous note,
telling him what he had decided upon doing, and advising him of his
changed address. He had also looked up Benny Hines, partly for the
same purpose, and partly to ascertain whether the old man had anything
fresh to communicate with reference to Sir Everard. But it appeared
that affairs in Great Mornington Street were going on much as they had
for the last two months. If it could not be averred that the baronet
was any worse in health, there seemed to be no visible signs of
improvement. Dr. Hoskins continued to call three or four times a week,
and his patient still went for a drive on most fine afternoons. But
with a man of the baronet's years such a state of things could not go
on much longer. If there was no improvement, it seemed inevitable that
he must gradually, although it might be almost imperceptibly, become
weaker. That they saw no company at No. 22, and went nowhere, was
sufficiently accounted for by the state of Sir Everard's health.
And now for Burgo began a new life indeed, one which, as he presently
found, tended to expand his ideas in directions never thought of
before, and to alter his views of many things in a quite remarkable
way. The "passing show," as seen from the perch of a hansom, wore for
him an aspect very different from that which it had assumed when
looked at from the box-seat of Lord Ockbrook's drag. It seemed to have
undergone a quite kaleidoscopic transformation between whiles. But, as
he told himself, what he saw now was the real thing--was the great
throbbing pulse of London, with some at least of its complex workings
and amazing contrasts laid bare for his inspection; while here and
there he obtained glimpses of its multifarious undercurrents of joy,
hope, fear, misery, and despair, and of a poverty so extreme that it
grinds the life out of some of its victims, while transforming others
into the semblance of brute beasts. To live for six months the life of
a London "cabby" is, for a man with eyes to see and a mind susceptible
of receiving and retaining impressions, an education of itself--but
what an education!
Various reports were current in those clubs of which Mr. Brabazon had
been a member, as to the cause of his sudden disappearance, for, so
far as was known, he had gone without saying a word to anybody.
Although somewhat reserved and stand-offish except with a chosen few,
he had been by no means unpopular; but none, even among his most
intimate friends, was in a position to furnish any authentic tidings
of his whereabouts, or to account definitely for his continued
absence. Some had it (for with your club gossip fact and invention
very often go hand in hand) that he had gone on an exploring
expedition among the wilds either of Africa or Asia, they were not
sure which. Others averred that he had got so deeply into debt, by no
means for the first time, as to have offended his uncle beyond
forgiveness, and that, as a consequence, he had been expatriated, with
the understanding that his allowance would cease the moment he should
set foot on English soil without leave being given him to do so. Nor
were these the only fables promulgated which found a more or less
ready credence in this or the other smoking-room. But when, on
different occasions, two men came forward and averred that they had
seen Burgo Brabazon driving a swell hansom for hire in the West End,
their statements were received either with polite incredulity or
unconcealed derision. Of course the explanation was simple enough. It
was merely one case the more of mistaken identity.
The only change in his appearance made by Burgo, except that he had
taken into regular wear his very oldest suit of tweeds, was that he
had shaved off his moustache, and had begun to cultivate an inch of
side whisker. But this, to an ordinary club acquaintance, or any one
who had not been on intimate terms with him, was enough to alter his
aspect almost beyond casual recognition. Then, his face had sunken
somewhat of late, thereby bringing his cheek bones into greater
prominence; and because his features were thinner, they looked longer
and older. That several of his whilom acquaintances should see him
without recognising him was scarcely to be wondered at. Indeed, more
than one of them had engaged his cab, and been driven by him to
wherever they had wanted to go, and had paid him at the end of the
journey, without having the slightest suspicion as to the driver's
personality. But on such occasions Burgo always spoke in a feigned
voice, and had a trick, which he had picked up when a boy, of treating
his fare to a very pronounced squint of his left eye.
But, as a rule, he saw old acquaintances without seeing them. He
neither turned away his face, nor let his eyes rest on them. To him
they were as the most absolute strangers--people on whom he had never
set eyes before, and, for anything he knew or cared, might never do so
again.
There came an afternoon when, in a temporary jam of vehicles, just
outside the Marble Arch, Burgo, perched aloft on his cab, found
himself close to Mrs. Mordaunt's barouche. For a couple of minutes or
more there was no possibility of turning a wheel. Seated with her back
to the horses, and facing her aunt and another lady, was Clara Leslie.
Her eyes and Burgo's met. She gave a little start, bit her lip, and
then bent forward as if to assure herself that it was really he. A
second look convinced her. He sat as if carved out of stone, his
features as devoid of expression as those of some old Egyptian deity.
But however changed he might be in other ways, she knew him by his
eyes. For her there were no such eyes in the world. Her own seemed to
dilate as she looked, while every trace of colour fled her face. Busy
discussing the latest morsel of scandal, neither Mrs. Mordaunt nor her
friend saw anything. Then the crowd parted as if by magic--the magic
brought to bear by the police on duty--and Burgo's mare, obedient to
its driver's signal, dashed forward. The same instant there was a
little cry from Mrs. Mordaunt. Miss Leslie had fainted.