JACK SHOWS HIS TEETH.
Fortune seemed to be looking kindly on Mary and Ellinor now, when the
former, through an advertisement, got a couple of pupils, little
girls, in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, and the latter had
actually sold her landscape, and started another.
'The Linn on the May' had caught the eye of Sir Redmond Sleath when
passing the shop window, not that he particularly cared about
pictures or art of any kind, save the culinary one, but he thought he
recognised the subject--even the style and the landscape--and on
looking more closely, after adjusting his inevitable eyeglass, an
exclamation of surprise or satisfaction, perhaps both, escaped him on
discovering the initials 'E.W.' in one of the lower corners, and he
entered the shop at once to inspect the landscape more closely.
'I think I know the artist,' said he to the bowing dealer, who was
not much accustomed to visitors of Sleath's style and bearing. 'A
young lady, is she not?'
'Yes, sir--yes--Miss Ellinor Wellwood.'
'I thought so. I'll take her work.'
'Thank you, sir. Shall I send it to your address, your club, or
where, sir?'
'Neither. I'll take it with me.'
Cautious in his plans, Sleath was reluctant to give his address, but
the price was soon agreed upon, and the money paid.
'I want a pair, and will order just such another,' said he. 'Perhaps
you can give me Miss Ellinor Wellwood's address?'
'Certainly, sir. She lives very near this.'
'Near this! By Jove!'
He obtained the number and the street, and went off with the
landscape, and with curious emotions of hope and evil blended
exultantly in his heart.
'Paddington?' he muttered, as he walked off towards the Marble Arch.
'D--nme, what a game! Are they so reduced, or so ignorant, as to
hang out there? Courage, Redmond, my boy, and that charming bit of
muslin may be your own yet.'
Sleath had been told plainly enough, and sternly too, by Colville, at
Lady Dunkeld's ball, that Mary and Ellinor were his cousins, who were
ignorant of his identity; but the too-knowing baronet did not believe
a word of his assertions, and, seeing the matter through the medium
of his own evil mind, supposed the story was 'only a red herring
drawn across the scent'--a dodge for purposes of the Guardsman's
own--so he sought counsel of Mr. John Gaiters, while the latter
prepared for him some brandy and seltzer-water.
'I am awfully spoony on a girl, Gaiters,' said he.
'That is nothing new, Sir Redmond; but it won't last.'
'It never does, I fear.'
'Certainly not with you, sir,' was the flippant reply of the valet.
'Here is her name and address. You will know her again when you see
her, but she must not know you. Find out all about her--who she is
living with, and all the rest of it--and you will do for me that
which nothing can repay.'
'By jingo, sir, I would rather do something that could be repaid.'
'Here is a fiver, anyway, and now be off.'
Duly instructed, a couple of days afterwards, and disguised by a
false beard and moustache, and clad in a tolerably accurate morning
suit, Mr. John Gaiters, turning up his already tip-tilted nose at
having to traverse so unaristocratic a locality as Paddington, soon
found the terrace and the number, and after an external survey of the
house, by means of the knocker brought to the door a little
maid-of-all-work, on whose cheeks was the black smudge so usual to
her class.
'Is your mistress at home?' he inquired, blandly.
'Yes, sir.'
'Ah, is she handsome? But I need not ask,' he added, insinuatingly.
'Why, sir?'
'Because, unless her beauty were not of a more than ordinary
character, she could not afford to have one so excelling as you by
her side.'
This high-flown speech, which Gaiters copied from some of his
master's, caused the little housemaid to think he was mad or tipsy,
and she was about to close the door with some precipitation, when
Mrs. Fubsby appeared, and, on inquiring for Miss Ellinor Wellwood, he
was informed she was at home.
The dealer had promptly informed Ellinor that a companion was wanted
for her landscape, and while intent among the many in her portfolio,
she was not surprised when Mrs. Fubsby announced a gentleman visitor,
who knew her face instantly, though she failed to recognise the
bearer of many gifts of flowers and game when at Birkwoodbrae.
With all his vulgar assurance, the valet felt himself for a little
time daunted or abashed by the presence and bearing of Ellinor, to
whom with some hesitation he told the object of his visit--he had
bought her picture, and a friend of his wished one precisely like it;
and while he was speaking, Jack, the terrier, with a dog's strange
instincts, maintained a most unpleasant snarling under the sofa, and
Gaiters, remembering the episode of his master, felt correspondingly
uneasy. For 'though love be proverbially blind, hatred has a sharp
sight,' and so had Jack, who showed his white glittering teeth from
time to time. 'Human beings have their instinctive likes and
dislikes, and why not dogs?' asks a writer. 'We cannot tell what
expression of countenance they consider malevolent, or menacing, or
murderous; but certain it is that they often exhibit unaccountable
antipathy to some individual, while most affectionate and amicable
towards all the rest of the world.'
So Jack's antipathy to Sleath now extended to his emissary Gaiters.
The landscape was soon agreed about--money was no object to the
visitor, who quickly selected a subject from a rough sketch, which
Ellinor perceived with some surprise he held upside-down, a curious
fancy in a connoisseur and patron of art, and, in the interests of
his knavish master, Gaiters, anxious to learn the entire _carte du
pays_, said,
'Do you live here alone, Miss Wellwood?'
'I am not Miss Wellwood--my sister is,' replied Ellinor, with a
little hauteur of manner.
'Is she, too, an artist?'
'No.'
'And you live together--so sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing
her.'
Ellinor thought this evinced curiosity; but, thinking she might
advance the interests of Mary, she said, as Mr. Gaiters took up his
hat,
'At this hour she is usually with her pupils at Portmore Square.'
'Ah--at this hour; we must make a note of that,' thought Mr. John
Gaiters, and, forgetting again to refer to the landscape, he bowed
himself out, hailed a hansom, and drove away, having obtained all the
information his master wanted--to wit, that the sisters were living
together, unprotected, in somewhat humble lodgings, and that Ellinor,
at the particular time mentioned, was always alone.
'Such a pleasant and haffable gentleman, and with such 'ansome
whiskers,' commented Mrs. Fubsby. 'Drat that dog--why did it worrit
so about him!'
The report made to Sir Redmond by his subservient emissary piqued and
encouraged him in his nefarious schemes.
'Every woman has her price,' thought he, as he sipped his wine that
evening after a cosy dinner at his club, and dreamily gazed down the
gas-lighted vista of Pall Mall; 'if not to me, this little one will
become the prize--the prey of some other fellow; so, with the basis I
have for future operations, why not to me? On some pretence or other
I snail get her wheedled over to the Continent, and then the game is
my own.'
In his instance it could not be said that
'Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart,'
for he gave his whole thoughts, and his heart too--such as the latter
was--to the consideration and perfection of his schemes, and exulted
in the idea of outwitting Colville, if he knew--as Sleath scarcely
doubted he did--the residence of the sisters.