WHAT WILL IT LEAD TO.
At about seven o’clock on the next evening, Arthur Prescott was sitting
smoking in his friend’s room, which was immediately under his own. The
two apartments were similar in size, but this was the only resemblance
that existed between them. Arthur’s was strictly a student’s room, plain
and neat, half office, half sitting room, with a few bookshelves filled
with plain, legal-looking volumes. Stiff dining-room chairs with
leather-covered seats, a horsehair sofa at the hardness of which Frank
was constantly grumbling, and two easy chairs of questionable comfort,
nearly made up the inventory of the contents. Frank’s room was in strong
contrast to this; it was handsomely, indeed luxuriously, furnished. The
walls were wainscoted with dark, or rather black oak, on the panels of
which hung a few really good pictures, which Frank had purchased during
his rambles in Spain. The curtains were green, and the floor covered
with a rich Turkey carpet, in which the same colour predominated. In the
centre of the mantelpiece stood a bronze statue from Herculaneum,
flanked by two real Etruscan vases, and a pair of magnificent Venetian
goblets. Crossed above these upon the wall were two long Turkish jasmine
pipe-stems, with their red bowls and amber mouth-pieces; and higher
still, two swords, Toledo and Damascene, bought in the countries where
they were manufactured. On brackets round the room were a few Parian
marble statuettes. On a small round table stood a large Turkish
narghile, with its long tube of green and gold coiled round it like a
glistening snake. In the recess on one side of the fire-place was a
really good library of choice standard works; in the other was a perfect
confusion of boxing-gloves, single-sticks, foils, masks, heavy clubs,
and dumb-bells, with which, as Frank said, he kept his hand in for a
quarter of an hour before breakfast. The chairs were covered with
furniture to match the hangings, but this was their only point of mutual
resemblance. They were all of different shapes; most of them being of
the sort coming under the general term of easy, while the two large ones
by the fire, in which the occupants of the room were seated, were of a
particularly comfortable and luxurious appearance. It was about these
very chairs that the young men were speaking.
“It is quite a treat to sit in them,” Prescott said.
“Yes,” Frank answered, puffing out his smoke with an air of extreme
contentment. “I flatter myself that they approach as nearly to perfect
comfort as it is possible for anything earthly to do. I do love an easy
chair. I remember when I was a child I used to be tortured, not as a
punishment, mind, but as a regular thing—tortured by having to sit on a
high-legged, straight-backed chair, with a seat no bigger than a
cheese-plate, so that you could neither lean forward nor backward. How
my unfortunate little back used to ache! I really wonder that my spine
ever grew straight. At other times, when not in that terrible little
chair, I had to sit bolt upright, and it was a penal offence to loll, as
my grandmother called it, or in any way to approach a comfortable
attitude.”
“It was nearly as bad in my case, Frank,” Prescott said. “I believe our
fathers had a vague idea that unless we sat perfectly upright, our spine
would become irretrievably crooked, whereas I really believe the reverse
to be nearer the fact. I feel certain that many a man and woman with a
curved spine and broken health has nothing but those atrocious chairs
and the miserable stiff attitudes they had to sit in as children to
thank for their misfortunes.”
“If our ancestors had but used their common sense,” Frank said, “which
with respect to the treatment of their children they never seem to have
done, they would have seen that the straightest and best formed people
in the world, the Arabs of the Desert, and I may add the North American
Indians—as they used to be, before they were improved off the face of
the earth—never sat on a chair in their lives, but always either lay at
full length, or squatted on the ground with their backs in a bow.
“Halloa!” he broke off; “there’s a single knock at the door; I wonder
who that can be, I have not ordered anything that I know of.”
So saying he got up and went to the outer door. A boy was standing
there.
“Please, sir, I want to see Mr. Maynard.”
“I am Mr. Maynard,” Frank said; “what do you want?”
“Please, sir, my name is Evan Holl.”
“Oh, is it you, Evan? Come in, it is so dark out here I did not know you
again. I am glad you have come.”
Frank led the way back again into the sitting-room, followed by Evan,
greatly abashed at the splendour of its belongings.
“Well, Evan, my lad,” Frank said, leaning against the mantel, “I suppose
your mother has told you what I said to her. Mr. Prescott here and I
were so much pleased with your pluck the other day at the Serpentine,
that I thought we should get on together capitally, for if there’s one
thing more than another I like, it is pluck. What do think of it; would
you like to come?”
“Please, sir, I should like it very much.”
“That’s right, Evan. Now you understand you are to be my man of all
work—errand-boy, footman, valet, groom, coachman, gardener, butler,
sailor, steward and cook—in fact, general factotum.”
Prescott laughed, and Evan opened his eyes in astonishment.
“Lor’ bless you, sir, I don’t know nothing about driving coaches, or
gardening, or cooking.”
“No!” Frank said in a tone of great surprise. “Of course in that case I
shall not be able to trust either my coach or my garden into your charge
at present. As to cooking, I should advise you to commence as soon as
possible; and I should recommend you to go through a course of study:
begin, say, by boiling a potato in its skin; next endeavour to reach
perfection with an egg; proceed gradually to a rasher of bacon; and
after that, master the intricacies of chops and steaks. I think that
will do for the present; my little favourite dishes I will myself
instruct you in afterwards.”
“What nonsense you do talk, Frank!” Prescott said, laughing; “the boy
does not know whether you are in earnest or not.”
Which, indeed, was the truth, for Evan was standing shifting uneasily
from one foot to the other, and twirling his cap between his hands with
a look of considerable embarrassment.
“Well, Evan,” Frank went on, “as Mr. Prescott seems to think that at
present we had better leave these matters alone, I suppose we must
postpone the cooking part of the business, as well as the driving and
gardening, and hope that it will all come in time. And now, Prescott,
about his dress; what do you say to a neat thing in green, picked out
with scarlet?”
“Nonsense, Frank! I don’t see that you want to put him in livery at
all.”
“My dear Prescott,” Frank said, plaintively, “you have no idea of the
fitness of things. You destroy all my illusions. I did think that green
picked out with scarlet would have harmonised well with the room. Do you
not agree with me, now, that a Turkish dress with a fez, and especial
instruction as to cleaning and lighting pipes and making black coffee,
would have a good effect;—a sort of Nubian slave attire, only he would
have to black his face to be in keeping? You would not mind that, Evan,
would you?”
Evan had by this time an idea that his new master was only joking, so he
answered more briskly, “I don’t know that I should mind it much, sir.”
“That is right,” Frank said, approvingly; “but I foresee a difficulty in
the matter. You see, Prescott, if he blacks his face, of course his
hands must be blacked, too, and that would be disagreeable, for it would
be sure to come off. I wonder, now, whether I could get a good receipt
anywhere. I should say that a gipsy would be a likely person to apply
to. They say, you know, that they steal children and dye them brown, and
perhaps they could do rather a darker shade if they liked. However, till
I find a gipsy the matter must stand over.”
“There, Frank, do stop talking nonsense, and let the boy go.”
“Very well, Evan, that will do for to-night. You understand, there will
not be much for you to do for the present. Keep yourself clean and tidy;
lose no time when I send you on messages; and, above all—and this I feel
sure I may trust you in from what your mother says of you—above all,
never tell me a lie; whatever may happen, tell me exactly the truth, and
I have no question that we shall get on capitally together. I will give
you a line to my tailor, and tell him to fit you out with a suit of
plain undress livery. And now, here are three sovereigns, take them to
your mother, and ask her to get you shoes and everything you may want,
and then you will start fair. I have arranged nothing about your wages,
but we shall not differ about that. There, good night, Evan; go with the
note at once to the tailor’s; I have told him to get, at any rate, some
of your things ready by the day after to-morrow, and when you have got
them come here at once. You will sleep in the little room off the
passage. I will get a bed and things for you to-morrow. Good-night.”
Evan took his leave, highly contented with his visit, and went home in
great spirits, and related to his brothers and sisters what had taken
place at the interview. The little ones were so amused at the idea of
Evan dressed up as a black boy, and having his face painted, that Mrs.
Holl had the greatest difficulty in getting them off to sleep, their
laughter bursting out afresh again and again; so that at last father
himself had to halloa at the foot of the stairs, that if they were not
quiet he should have to come up to them, a threat which they knew meant
something, whereas all mother’s scolding went for nothing.
After Evan had left, Prescott announced his intention of going up to
read, and asked Frank what he intended to do with himself.
“What time is it now?—half-past seven. Tomorrow evening I am engaged
out. I think I shall go down and see my uncle.”
Frank, in accordance with this intention, proceeded to change his coat,
Prescott waiting while he did so. He took a quantity of letters from his
pocket.
“How terribly letters do accumulate, and I am afraid that most of them
want answering. Put me in mind of it to-morrow morning, Prescott, and I
will do a regular batch of letter writing. What’s this? Ah! Stephen
Walker—by the way I promised to look him up, and see how he is after his
shaking. It is somewhere down Knightsbridge way, so I may as well do it
while I think of it. As he is a tobacconist, I will go in and get a
cigar, and if he recognises me, well and good; if not, I shall not
introduce myself. Good-bye, old man, take care of yourself. Mind, you
breakfast with me in the morning.”
Frank Maynard found the shop of Stephen Walker without much difficulty.
The solitary candle burnt on the counter, but no one was in the shop.
However, on hearing the door open, Carry came out of the back room,
where she had been sitting reading, bringing another lighted candle in
her hand. Frank, who had fully expected to see an elderly man make his
appearance, was not a little surprised at seeing such a remarkably
pretty girl come out. He asked for some tobacco, which Carry, who had
noticed at the first glance that he was not a regular customer, gave him
in silence; for, indeed, at the moment he entered, she had been engaged
in a most interesting chapter of her book, and she was longing to get
back to it again.
“Have you any good cigars?” Frank asked.
Almost mechanically she drew back the glasses from above the cigars upon
the counter. Frank glanced at them.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I mean, have you any really good ones?”
Carry looked fairly up at Frank for the first time.
“Come, now,” he urged, “I have no doubt but that you have a box of good
ones which you keep for your favoured customers.”
Carry smiled, and brought out the box which was usually reserved for
Fred Bingham’s smoking. “I believe these are good, sir.”
“Yes,” Frank said, examining them, “these look the right thing, I will
take half a dozen.”
Now Frank had entered the shop with his mind perfectly made up, that
unless he was recognised, he should go out again without saying who he
was; but Carry looked so very pretty and bright, that he thought it
would be very pleasant to sit down and have a chat with her, and to do
so there was no other way than to say who he was. So he began,—
“Mr. Walker—your father I presume—has he quite recovered from the fright
and the shock he got the other day?”
The bright eyes glanced up inquiringly at him now, and a flash of eager
colour came across her face.
“How did you know my father was hurt, sir?”
“I saw him fall,” Frank said; “indeed I was fortunately close to him at
the time, and helped him to pick himself up.”
“Did you indeed, sir?” Carry asked earnestly, “and was it you really who
saved his life?”
“I do not know that I actually saved his life,” Frank said, smiling,
“but I certainly helped him up.”
“Father! father!” Carry cried, flying into the next room and calling up
the stairs. “Come down, come down at once; here is the gentleman who
saved your life.” Then she rushed back into the shop, but this time to
the same side of the counter as that on which Frank was standing, seized
his hand in hers, and looked up into his face with those large eyes of
hers. “Oh, I am so glad you have come, I wanted so much to thank you;
so, so much. Father has told me all about it, and I know that I owe his
life to you.”
“Don’t say anything more about it,” Frank said; “I saved your father’s
life by the simple accident that I happened to be close to him when he
fell, and fortunately having my wits about me, picked him up in time.”
“It is very well for you to say so, sir,” Carry said, “but you will
never make me feel differently towards you; you saved father’s life at
the risk of your own, and how can I ever thank you enough?” And Carry
looked up so gratefully and earnestly, that Frank did as most other
young fellows would have done in his place, bent down and kissed the
bright face lifted up to his. Carry returned the kiss as an impulsive
child might have done; it was the saviour of her father’s life that she
thanked, not a good-looking young man, and flushed and excited as she
was, the colour hardly deepened upon her cheek.
“There, we are quits now,” Frank said, “so the burden is off your mind.”
At this moment Stephen Walker entered. He was evidently even more
nervous and embarrassed than usual.
“Oh, sir,” he began, when Frank interrupted,—
“Pray say no more about it, Mr. Walker. I was lucky enough to be close
to you, and did what any one else would have done under the
circumstances. Your daughter has already thanked me most amply for you
both,” and he glanced for a moment at Carry, who this time coloured up
hotly; “so please let us say no more about it,” and he shook Stephen
Walker warmly by the hand. As he did so, Stephen Walker, by a great
effort, overcame his habitual nervousness, and said, quietly,
“My life, sir, is of no great value to myself or to any one else except
to my daughter here, but for her sake I thank you very much for saving
it. And now, sir, it is very long since any gentleman has honoured my
roof with his presence, but if you will come in for half an hour, and
smoke a cigar, I shall take it as a favour.”
Frank willingly accepted the invitation, and rather surprised at the
manner in which it was given, went into the little parlour, Stephen
Walker pausing for a moment to speak a word or two to his daughter. He
then produced his best cigars, lit one himself instead of his usual
pipe, and when Carry came in with two bottles of spirits, she was
surprised to find her father and his guest talking together like old
acquaintances.
Stephen Walker seemed for once to have laid aside that nervous timidity
which had cost him so much during his life, and which had become almost
a part of his nature; he chatted with Frank quietly and cheerfully, as
one gentleman with another. The conversation turned upon travels, and
Frank found to his astonishment that there was hardly a place he had
visited in Europe that his host did not know as well as he did himself.
As for Carry, she could hardly believe her senses. Was this her dear,
nervous old father? She had heard him say incidentally that he had
travelled when he was a young man, but she had had no idea of the extent
of his journeyings. As the conversation went on, her blue eyes opened
wider and wider, and at last she was so convinced that she must be
dreaming, that she ran the needle, with which she was pretending to
work, into her finger, to assure herself that she was awake. Frank
remained for about an hour in conversation with Stephen Walker, and then
took his leave, promising that he would call again. With Carry he had
hardly exchanged a word after his first entrance; indeed he had been so
much interested in his conversation with her father that he had quite
forgotten the motive he had in first declaring himself. As for Carry,
she was far too much surprised at her father’s change of manner, to
think of speaking at all. After Frank had gone, Stephen Walker went back
into the little parlour, while Carry locked the door and closed the shop
for the night. When she had done this, she went into the other room, and
found her father sitting in his chair with his head bent down, and his
empty pipe, which he had mechanically taken down, lying across his
knees. Carry paused a little, and then seeing that he did not raise his
head, she went up to him, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said,
“Who is this person? Have I been dreaming, or has this been my old
father who has been talking here for the last hour?”
For more than a minute her father did not answer. His fingers played
nervously, with his pipe; then he looked up and said, hurriedly,—
“No, Carry, no. It was not your old father who was speaking then. Not
his real self, but quite another being. It was one who might have been
me, but not myself as I am. No, no, child, don’t think it, don’t think
it.” And he moved his hands nervously, as if to wipe away the thought.
“Don’t think what? pappy dear,” she said, coming closer to him and
putting one arm round his neck, while with her other she stroked his
thin grey hair. “I only am thinking what a bad naughty pappy it has
been, when it could talk like that, and knew all these things, never to
let poor little me know anything about it. To think that all these years
this bad thing should have hidden what it really was, and let me have my
own way, and be mistress, and scold it and talk to it as if it were a
child, when it was all the time so clever and wise. Naughty, naughty
pappy.” Carry talked playfully, but it was evident that she was very
much in earnest, for the tears stood in her eyes.
“No, no, Carry, whatever you do, do not think that I was ever as I was
to-night; do not think that the one you have always known is a pretence,
and that this one was the real thing. I was never like that. Do not
think that misfortune,—you know I was better off once—has so changed me
that I have become what I am from that. I never was so, dear; I might
have been so, but I never was. Had I always been as you just saw me we
should not be here as we are now, and all would have been quite
different; but that other nature went away when I was quite little,
scared by harsh treatment, and never came back again except for a little
little time till to-night. Why it did come back to-night I cannot say,
only to raise doubts between my child and me,” and Stephen Walker wrung
his hands in feeble despair.
“No, no, father dear,” Carry said, throwing her arms round his neck and
kissing him, “not doubts. I was very pleased and proud, but very
surprised too, to hear my old pappy talk like that, and a little ashamed
when I thought how much I had underrated you. Not that I should have
loved you more, had you been the cleverest man in the world, not one bit
more; but I should have looked up to you more, and felt somehow
differently towards you.”
“That is just it,” Stephen Walker said, helplessly; “she would have felt
differently. She is not going to be my little Carry any more. That other
one has come in between us, and frightened her away.”
“No, no, pappy,” Carry said coaxingly, and seating herself upon his
knees, “this is your little Carry, is it not? There, look up, and don’t
hang your naughty head down. Is not this little Carry? Come, speak, sir,
or I shall scold you dreadfully.”
“Yes, yes, my darling,” the old man said, “you are my own little Carry.
And now listen, dear, and I will tell you in a few words the story of my
life. My father was a tradesman well to do, but he was a stern man, and
took a mistaken view of his religious duties. I was a poor weakly
delicate child; at school I was beaten and worried; at home lectured and
preached at; my life was a misery and a burden; and even at that young
age, all hope of my ever being what I otherwise might have been, had I
been differently brought up, was lost. After some years I became my own
master, but it was too late then, my child; too late. For awhile I
travelled, as you have heard this evening. Then I married; things went
badly with me. I am, as you know, from my nervous timidity, a poor hand
at business. So I lost, as might have been expected, what little I had;
and here I am a poor, but, I thank God, a far happier and more contented
man than I had ever hoped or deserved to be. Happy in having enough to
live upon without anxiety, and in having my own little Carry to love and
pet. And now, Carry, light my pipe, and try and forget what has taken
place to-night.”
Carry never spoke of it again, but she did think of it a good deal. Only
to think that if that dear old father of hers had not lost his money,
she should have been rich, and perhaps riding in a carriage instead of
selling periodicals and cigars behind a counter. Her father had
certainly spoken of losing what little he had, but that could only have
been his way of talking; for did he not travel about everywhere, and did
it not cost a good deal of money to travel; and was it not only rich
people who travelled about in that way? Oh! he must have been rich; and
how nice it would have been to be rich, and to do what one liked, and to
buy beautiful dresses and things, instead of merely looking at them in
the shop windows. And Carry pictured herself in all sorts of pretty
dresses, and tasty little bonnets, and thought she should certainly look
very nice. Then she sighed a little, and wondered whether she should
ever be rich. Who could say? The gentlemen who came to the shop all paid
her compliments, and some of them were real gentlemen, not mere clerks;
and Carry resolved in her mind to be rather more distant in her manner
to these last than had been her custom. Besides all this, she thought a
good deal of Frank Maynard, so brave and strong and good-looking, but
very impertinent—not, perhaps, that she liked him any the worse in her
heart for that, girls seldom do—and to think of her kissing him, too.
How could she have done such a thing? He must think her very bold and
forward; and even when alone, Carry coloured up at the thought, as she
had not done at the time when, in the fulness of her gratitude, she had
kissed Frank Maynard.
That gentleman, after leaving the shop, had gone straight to Lowndes
Square, where he found only his uncle at home, Alice having gone out,
under the chaperonage of a neighbour, to a ball.
“Well, Frank, where do you come from? You do not often drop in so late
as this.”
“No, uncle; but I have just been making a call.”
“Making a call, Frank? You have chosen rather a curious hour for
visiting. Who is your friend?”
“Stephen Walker, uncle.”
“Stephen Walker!” Captain Bradshaw said, in a puzzled tone. “I seem to
remember the name, but damme if I can recollect who it is.”
“It is the man I picked up at the crossing last week, uncle Harry.”
“Ah, yes, I remember now,” Captain Bradshaw said, laughing; “periodicals
punctually supplied. And how long did your visit last, Frank?”
“Better than an hour, uncle. I went into his room and smoked a pipe with
him.”
“Oh, indeed. And has the excellent newsman any family, Frank?”
“He has one daughter, and she is without exception one of the very
prettiest girls I ever saw.”
“Oh, indeed,” Captain Bradshaw said, drily; “that accounts for the
length of your visit. I suppose she was very grateful to the preserver
of her father’s life, and that sort of thing? I should not be surprised
now if she threw herself into your arms and kissed you—eh, Frank?”
“Well, uncle,” Frank said, laughing, “I shall think you are a conjurer,
for I confess that I did kiss her.”
“Just what I guessed,” Captain Bradshaw said, even more drily. “And the
father, Frank? I suppose he is a very superior sort of man?”
“Very much so, uncle; I can assure you, although you are laughing at me,
he is quite a gentleman; has travelled all over Europe, and has
evidently mixed in good society there.”
“Look here, Frank” Captain Bradshaw said, very gravely; “this is exactly
the sort of thing which is sure to end badly. Here we have all the
elements: father a decayed gentleman; daughter a lovely and accomplished
girl, gushing over with gratitude to the preserver of her father’s life.
I should advise you very seriously not to go there again. I have known
these sort of things over and over again, scores of times, and they end
in nine cases out of ten in a man’s making either a fool or a rascal of
himself.”
“But, uncle,” Frank broke out hotly——
“Pooh, pooh! Frank, don’t tell me,” the captain said. “Damme, sir, do
you think I have not heard it over and over again? Of course you have
only been there once; you have found a pretty, grateful girl, and you
have given her a kiss, as was only right and natural that you should do
under the circumstances. There is no harm in these first meetings—there
never is. A man seldom goes into these things with his eyes open—very
few men are scoundrels enough deliberately to plan these things—but he
calls again and again. He still finds her very pretty, and her gratitude
gradually grows into a warmer feeling; he has kissed her once, and of
course it would be absurd for her to make any objection when he does it
the second time; and so these things go on, until the man, as I have
said, either makes a fool of himself, and marries her, or makes a rascal
of himself, and does worse. I know, Frank, that such an idea is at
present as far from your head as it is from mine; but as a man of the
world, I ask you, ask yourself, if you were to go there often—sometimes,
of course, finding her father away, and having a half hour’s chat with
her all to yourself—would you not end by feeling that you had very much
better have left the matter alone? Honestly, now?”
“Well, uncle, honestly, now you put it in that light, very likely I
should. But I think you know me well enough to feel——”
“Quite so, Frank,” the captain said, taking his hand; “quite so. I
believe you to be an honourable, upright young fellow. I believe you to
be more free than young men in general from this sort of thing, but for
that very reason more likely to make a fool of yourself. Now you have my
opinion of the affair. If you are wise you will take my advice, and not
go there again.”
As Frank Maynard walked home that night, thinking over what had
happened, he took his cigar from his mouth, and said to himself, “By
Jove, uncle is right; she is a wonderfully pretty winning little thing;
and if I were to go there often, and find, as he says, her father out, I
should be very likely to get spoony, and make in the end, as he
prophesies, either a fool or a rascal of myself; so I will take his
advice, and go there no more. Prevention is better than cure.”