"NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY."
After the ladies left the dining-room, Walter Joyce, in the general
re-arrangement of seats thereon ensuing, found himself placed next to
Mr. Gould. It was soon obvious that his propinquity was not accidental
on Mr. Gould's part. That keen-looking gentleman at once wheeled round
in his chair, helped himself to a few olives and a glass of the driest
sherry within his reach, and then fixing his bright steel-blue eyes on
his neighbour, said--
"That was news for you, that about young Creswell's accident, Mr.
Joyce?"
"It was indeed," replied Walter; "and--to a certain extent--sad news."
"You knew the boy who was killed, and his father?"
"Both. I knew the boy well; he was a pupil in the school where I was
an usher, and I knew the father--by sight--as a man in my position
would know a man in his."
"Ah--of course!" and Mr. Gould glanced more keenly than ever at his
interlocutor, to see whether he was speaking earnestly or
contemptuously. Earnestly, he thought, after a glance, and Joyce fell
a little in the worldly man's opinion. He sucked an olive slowly, made
a little pattern on his plate with the stones, and then said, "Do you
think this affair will make any difference in Mr. Creswell's future?"
"In his future? Will the loss of his son make any difference in his
future? Are you serious in asking such a question, Mr. Gould? Will it
not leave his life a blank, a vague misery without----"
"Yes, yes, of course; I know all about that. You'll pardon me, Mr.
Joyce, I'm a much older man than you, and therefore you won't mind my
experiencing a certain amount of delight in your perfect freshness
and simplicity. As to leaving the man's life blank, and all
that--nonsense, my dear sir, sheer nonsense. He'll find plenty of
distraction, even at his age, to fill up the blank. Now, I was not
considering the question from a domestic point of view in the least;
what I meant was, do you think that it will alter any of his
intentions as regards public life?"
"Public life?--Mr. Creswell?"
"Yes, indeed, public life, Mr. Creswell! I suppose now there's no harm
in telling you that the Conservative authorities in London, the
wire-pullers in Westminster, have long had it in their minds to wrest
the seat for Brocksopp from the Liberals, that at the next general
election they have determined to make the fight, and they have
selected Mr. Creswell as their champion."
"Mr. Creswell of Woolgreaves--going into Parliament?"
"Well, that's rather a summary way of putting it, Mr. Joyce," said the
lawyer, with a chuckle. "Say rather, going to try to get into
Parliament! Bidwell, of Brocksopp, the Liberal agent, is a deuced
long-headed fellow, and will make a tremendous struggle to keep Mr.
Creswell out in the cold. Do you know Bidwell, of Brocksopp?"
"I have a slight acquaintance with him."
"Then you've a slight acquaintance with a remarkably sharp character,
and one who never misses a chance for his party. It will be a
tremendous fight, sir, this next election," said Mr. Gould, warming
up, placing all his olive-stones in a row, and charging at them with
his dessert-knife; "they'll do all they can to beat us, and we shall
have to do all we know to hold our own. When I say 'we,' of course I
reckon you as a Conservative."
"I--I have no political opinions. I take no interest in politics,"
said Joyce absently.
Mr. Creswell, from any but a domestic point of view, could not rouse
an emotion in him.
"Don't you indeed? No political opinions? Ah, I remember when I hadn't
any myself. That was--dear me!" and the astute parliamentary agent
made a new pattern with the olive-stones, while his thoughts went back
for a quarter of a century, to a time when he was under articles in
Gray's Inn, used to frequent the Cider Cellars, and was desperately in
love with the columbine of the Adelphi.
They went to the drawing-room soon afterwards. There was some
instrumental music of the most approved firework style, and then
Captain Frampton growled away at "Il Balen" with great success, and
Joyce was just making up his mind to slip away, when Lady Caroline
Mansergh sat down to the piano, and began to sing one of Moore's
melodies to her own accompaniment. Ah, surely it is not laying one's
self open to the charge of fogeyism to grieve over the relegation to
the "Canterbury" of those charming ballads, wherein the brightest
fancies were wedded to the sweetest sounds? If the "makers of the
people's ballads" possess the power ascribed to them, there is,
indeed, but little cause to wonder at the want of tone prevalent in a
society, which for its drawing-room music alternates between mawkish
sentimentality and pot-house slang. When the first note of Lady
Caroline's rich contralto voice rippled round the room, the guests
standing about in small knots, coffee-cup in hand, gradually sidled
towards the piano, and ere she had sung the first stanza even Colonel
Tapp's ventriloquial grumbling--he was discussing army estimates, and
the infernal attempts at cheeseparing of the Manchester School--was
hushed. No one in the room was uninfluenced by the singer's spell, on
no one had it so much effect as on Walter Joyce, who sat far away in
the shadow of a curtain, an open photograph-book unheeded on his knee,
drinking in the melody and surrendering himself entirely to its potent
charms. His eyes were fixed on the singer, now on her expressive face,
now on her delicate little hands as they went softly wandering over
the keys, but his thoughts were very, very far away. Far away in the
old school garden, with its broad grass-plots, its ruddy wall, its
high elm trees, frame-like bordering the sweet domestic picture. Far
away with Marian, the one love which his soul had ever known. Ah, how
visibly he saw her then, the trim figure noiselessly moving about on
its domestic errands, the bright beryl eyes upturned in eager
questioning towards his own, the delicate hand with its long thin
fingers laid in such trusting confidence on his arm! What ages it
seemed since he had seen her! what a tremendous gulf seemed ever to
separate them! And what prospect was there of that union for which
they had so fervently prayed? The position he was to gain--where was
that? What progress had he made in--"friends once linked together I've
seen around me fall, like leaves in wintry weather!" Ay, ay, the poor
old dominie, at rest--better there than anywhere else, better to be
out of the strife and the worry, and--good heavens was this what he
had promised her? was this the courage on which he had prided himself,
and which was to carry him through the world? "Brava! brava! Oh, thank
you so very much, Lady Caroline. Mayn't we hope for another? Thanks,
so much!" The song was over; the singer had left the piano. He caught
one glance as he bowed and murmured his thanks. He could not stand it
any longer, his thoughts had completely unmanned him, and he longed
for solitude. If it were rude to leave the party he must brave even
Lady Hetherington's wrath, but he would try and get away unobserved.
Now, while the hum of admiration was still going on, and while people
were gathering round Lady Caroline, was the opportunity. He availed
himself of it, slipped away unperceived, and hurried to his own room.
He closed the door behind him, turned the key, and flung himself on to
the bed, in the dark. He felt that he could contain himself no longer,
and now that he was alone and unseen, there was no further reason to
restrain the tears which had been welling into his eyes, and now
flowed unchecked down his cheeks. He was a man of nervous temperament,
highly wrought susceptibilities, and acute sympathies, which had
been over-excited during the evening by the story of Tom Creswell's
death, his own recollections of his past life, and the weird
thought-compelling power of Lady Caroline's music. There was no
special occasion for these tears; he knew nothing had happened to
Marian, nothing--no, nothing had happened calculated in any way to
interpose any--any barrier between them; his position was pleasant,
his prospects brighter than he could have hoped--and yet, and yet! How
very strange that she had not written lately!--unless, indeed, she had
been completely absorbed by ministering to the trouble round her.
Walter could easily picture to himself the comfort she must have been
to all in the midst of the desolation which had fallen upon that
hitherto prosperous house; he recollected how even in the midst of her
own deep sorrow she had been able, at the time of her father's death,
to rouse her mother from the lethargic state of grief into which she
had fallen; and if Marian could do that then, while her own heart was
bleeding, how much more would she be able to bestir herself now, when
neither for the dead, nor for those left behind, had she anything but
a kindly interest? And might not this sad event prove a useful lesson
to her; might it not prove the one thing needful to render her a
perfect character, showing her, as it would, that there are worse
misfortunes than poverty, and that grief can slip in behind the
shields of wealth and position, and abase the heads of their
possessors to the dust? That longing for money and worship of position
was the only blot in Marian's character, as seen by Walter Joyce's
eyes, and if this accident led to its eradication, it would not have
been without its beneficent purpose.
He rose from the bed, and felt his way towards his dressing-table. As
he was groping for the matches, his hand fell upon an unopened letter.
From Marian, without a doubt; he felt his heart throbbing; at once he
struck a light and looked hurriedly for the familiar writing. No, not
from Marian! Totally unlike her square neatly written notes; a large
blue letter, directed in a straggling hand, and awkwardly folded.
Though Joyce was disappointed and, vexed for an instant, he quickly
recovered himself, and he took the letter up and smiled at it
pleasantly, for he had recognised the style and the writing, and he
knew that it had come from old Jack Byrne.
Thus it ran:
"London, Thursday.
"MY DEAR BOY,
"You'll wonder I haven't answered that capital letter you
sent me, giving a description of Westhope and its people, and your
life there. You'll wonder, because you are young; when you're as old
as I am you won't wonder at anything, except when you sometimes find a
man tell the truth; but you shouldn't wonder then, because it would
only be an accident. I am very glad that you seem to be so comfortable
among the swells, but I never had much fear about it. I know them root
and branch, the whole lot, though I'm only an old bird-stuffer; but
I'm like Ulysses, I've seen men and cities, and used my eyes--used 'em
so much that, by Jove! I don't think they'll last me much longer--at
least, for the fine work in my business. What was I saying? Oh, I see;
I know the swells, and I know that if they see a man respect himself
they always respect him. All of 'em, sir; don't make any mistake about
it. All of 'em, the most ineffable transparencies, who think you're
sewn up and stuffed in quite a different way from themselves, the
kindly noodles, and the clever people--for there are clever people, a
few, even among swells--all like to see a man respect himself. You'll
have found out by this time, if you did not know it before, that Lord
Hetherington is one of the kindly noodles, and one of the best of 'em.
He can't help believing in his blood, and his lineage, and his descent
from those bloodthirsty, ignorant old ruffians of the Middle Ages,
whose only good was that they killed other bloodthirsty, ignorant old
ruffians, and he can't help being a fool, that being the penalty which
a man generally has to pay for being able to boast of his descent; but
he is harmless and kind-hearted. How goes on the book? Take my advice,
and make it light and anecdotical. Boil down those old chronicles and
parchments of the great West family, and serve them up in a
_soufflet_.
And don't let your heavy pedagogical style be seen in the dish! If you
do, everybody will know at once that my lord has had nothing to do
with the book on the title-page of which his name figures. I suppose
it wouldn't do to put in any bad spelling, would it? That would be
immensely reassuring to all who know Lord Hetherington as to the real
authorship.
"And my lady, how is that _grande dame_? I've grinned a hundred times,
thinking over your face of indignation and disgust at the manner in
which she received you that day we went to call on their magnificences
at the Clarendon, with a view to your engagement! How does she treat
you now? Has she ordered you to black her boots yet, or to wash her
lap-dog, or to take your meals with her lady's-maid? Or, more likely
still, has she never taken any notice at all of you, having no
idea of your existence, beyond the fact that there is a
writing-machine--you--in the library, as there is a churn in the
dairy, and a mangle in the laundry! And does this behaviour gird you,
and do you growl inwardly about it, or are you a philosopher, and able
to despise anything that a woman can do to hurt you? If the latter,
come up to town at once, and I will exhibit you in a show as a _lusus
naturae_, and we will divide the profits and make our fortunes.
"And while on that subject, Walter, let me drop my old cynical fun,
and talk to you for a minute honestly and with all the affection of
which my hard, warped, crabbed nature is capable. I can write to you
what I couldn't say to you, my boy, and you won't think me gushing
when I tell you that my heart had been tight locked and barred for
years before I saw you, and that I don't think I've been any the worse
since you found a key somehow--God knows how--to unlock it. Now, then,
after that little bit of maudlin nonsense, to what I was going to say.
The first time we were ever in my old room together talking over your
future, I proposed to start you for Australia. You declined, saying
that you couldn't possibly leave England; and when I pressed you about
the ties that bound you here, and learned that you had no father or
mother, you boggled, and hesitated, and broke down, and I was obliged
to help you out of your sentence by changing the subject. Do you
remember all that? And do you think I didn't know what it all meant?
That marvellous stupidity of young men, which prevents them from
thinking that any one has ever been young but themselves! I knew that
it meant that you were in love, Walter, and that's what I want to ask
you about. From that hour until the day we pressed hands in farewell
at Euston Square, you never alluded to her again! In the long letter
which you sent me, and which now lies before me, a letter treating
fully of your present and your future life, there is no word of her
Don't think I am surprised at a fine, generous, hearty, hopeful young
fellow not giving his love-confidence to a withered, dried-up old
skittle like myself; I never expected it; I should not mention it now,
save that I fear that the state of affairs can be scarcely
satisfactory between you, or you, who have placed your whole story
unreservedly before me, would not have hidden this most important part
of it. Nor do I want to ask you for a confidence which you have not
volunteered. I only wish you to examine the matter calmly, quietly,
and under the exercise of your common sense, of which you have plenty.
And if it is unsatisfactory in any way---_give it up!_ Yes, Walter,
give it up! It sounds harshly, ridiculously, I know, but it is honest
advice, and if I had had any one to say it to me years and years ago,
and to enforce my adoption of it, I should have been a very different
man. Believe in no woman's love, Walter; trust no woman's looks, or
words, or vows. 'First of all would I fly from the cruel madness of
love,' says Mr. Tennyson, and he is right. Cruel madness, indeed we
laugh at the wretched lunatic who dons a paper crown, and holds a
straw for a sceptre, while all the time we are hugging our own tinsel
vanities, and exulting in our own sham state! That's where the swells
have the pull, my boy! They have no nonsense about mutual love, and
fitness, and congeniality, and all that stuff, which is fitted for
nothing but valentine-mongers and penny-romancists; they are not very
wise, but they know that the dominant passion in a man's heart is
admiration of beauty, the dominant passion in a woman's is ambition,
and they go quietly into the mart and arrange the affair, on the
excellent principle of barter. When I was your age I could not believe
in this, had high hopes and aspirations, and scouted the idea of
woman's inconstancy--went on loving and hoping and trusting, from
month to month, and from year to year, wore out my youth and my
freshness and my hope, and was then flung aside and discarded, the
victim of 'better opportunities' and 'improved position.' Oh, Lord! I
never intended to open my mouth about this, but if you ever want to
hear the whole story, I'll tell you some day. Meanwhile, think over
these hints, my boy Life's too short and too hard as it is,
and--_verbum sap_.
"Most probably you'll never take any further notice of me, after that.
If you have corns, I must have been hard and heavy upon them, and
you'll curse my impertinence; if you haven't, you'll think me the
prosiest of old bores. Just like me. I see plainly that I must have
made a mess of it, whichever way it turns up.
"You tell me to send you news. Not much about; but what there is,
encouraging and good for the cause. There is very little doubt that at
the general election, which will come off in a few months, we shall be
stronger by far than we ever expected, and shall cut the combs of some
of those aristocrats and plutocrats very close indeed. There is a
general feeling that blood and moneybags have divided the spoil too
long, and and that worth and intellect may be allowed a chance of
being brought into play. There are three or four men at the club, whom
you know, and who are tolerably certain of seats, and who, if once
they get the opportunity of making their voices heard in Parliament,
will show the world of what stuff real Englishmen consist. Who do you
think is helping us immensely? Shimmer, he of Bliffkins's! He has got
an engagement on the _Comet_--a new journal which has just started in
our interest, and he is writing admirably. A good deal of Lemprière's
dictionary, and Bohn's quotations, and Solomon's proverbs, mixed up
with a dashing incisive style and sound Saxon English, has proved
immensely telling. People are buying the _Comet_ everywhere, and
Shimmer's salary has been twice raised, and he has been applied to for
his photograph. He does not come much to Bliffkins's now, greatly to
old Wickwar's relief. The old gentleman has expressed his opinion that
since Robsperry (he is supposed to have meant Robespierre) there has
been no such sanguinary democrat as Shimmer. When will you come back
to us, Walter? I look at the place where I used to see you sitting,
before I ever spoke to you; I sit and stare at it now until I feel my
eyes---- D--d old fool!
"Good-bye, boy. Let me hear from you again soon. You know what you
promised if ever you wanted money or anything. J.B.
"Opened again to say Shimmer has been here inquiring after you.
_Comet_ people want a correspondent at Berlin--special and important.
S. thinks you'll do. Will you go? J.B."
The company had long since departed from Westhope; the family had
long since retired to rest; dim lights glimmered here and there in the
windows; but Walter Joyce remained sitting on the side of his bed,
with Jack Byrne's open letter in his hand. When he wrote it the old
man little thought what a field of painful speculation he had laid
open for its recipient.