JARLEY JAWKINS.
The library of Ripon House was an apartment panelled in oak, blackened
by time and smoke. The high and richly carved mantelpiece bore the arms
of the Ripon family, three wolves on a field, or, surmounted by a wild
man from Borneo rampant, bearing a battle-axe, gules. Shelves which once
were filled with fine books were then empty, the void being covered by
old tapestries. The furniture was old and gaunt, save for a few modern
soft-cushioned chairs which seemed to have been recently deposited
there, and were, by the brilliant color of their coverings, not at all
in harmony with the faded tapestries of their high-backed and carven
predecessors. On one of the gaunt old chairs Abraham Windsor was seated,
holding in his right hand the London _Times_, which slowly issued from a
"ticker" upon the table at his side. After looking sharply at the
financial news, which just then was being recorded in the "Thunderer,"
he glanced quickly toward the door, as if he expected some one to enter.
Abraham Windsor was a man of sixty, and each year seemed to have left
its impress upon the man who had battled through it, so that he seemed
his own living history, and by close observation you might read of a
youth of scant schooling in books, not spent among folks of gentle
breeding, nor protected from the world, but left to shift for itself
against the numerous kicks and scanty half pence of the hard world; then
one might discern the period of restless scheming and speculation, and
finally the look of successful yet of unsatisfied ambition. Still his
face was not a hard and stern one, but shrewd and kindly. He seemed a
man who would drive careful bargains, but who was too large-minded and
honest to be mean or overreaching. His large head was thatched with
thick, bristling iron-gray hair, his face was swarthy and clean-shaven,
his black eyes were deep-set and keen, his nose prominent, yet
well-shaped, and his mouth firm and resolute, having a humorous curve;
he was plainly dressed in a black broadcloth suit which hung loosely
over his bony frame. He threw down the ribbons upon the floor with an
impatient gesture, and watched the news of the world, as it coiled at
his feet in the white spirals, for a moment; then he arose from his
chair and touched an electric knob. Instantly a stately footman in a
dark livery and a powdered wig entered the room.
"Mr. Jawkins has arrived?" Mr. Windsor asked.
"No, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Has Miss Windsor returned from her walk?"
"She has come into the house, sir."
"Has Mr. Jawkins sent word when we are to expect him?"
"Yes, sir; we are awaiting him every moment, sir. I think I hear wheels
now, sir."
"Very well; ask him to come to me here when he is at leisure."
The tall footman bowed and noiselessly left the room, and Mr. Windsor
picked up the _Times_ and looked at it for a moment. Presently a short,
pudgy man in travelling dress, with thin, smoothly-brushed hair,
mutton-chop whiskers and a very red face, was ushered into the room, and
Mr. Windsor stretched out his hand in welcome.
"Mr. Jawkins, I believe?"
"Yes, Mr. Windsor; I am Jarley Jawkins, very much at your service."
"Glad to see you, Jawkins," said the American; "take a cigar, won't you?
I will ring for some whiskey and water if you care for a snifter."
"I beg to be excused," replied Jawkins, deprecatingly. "You American
gentlemen must have the constitutions of horses; you seem to be able to
smoke and take 'snifters,' as you drolly call them, at all hours, but I
really cannot do it, you know. Do you find things to suit you here, Mr.
Windsor? I could have given you many finer houses; to tell you the
truth, I was rather surprised when you chose Ripon House out of my list.
There is so little furniture in it that my men have not been able to put
in all the necessary articles yet, but it will be wholly in order in a
few hours."
"Yes; your men seem very busy," replied Mr. Windsor. "The upper floors
are all ready, but I have been driven into this room on the ground floor
this morning."
"Oh! dear me, what a pity, sir," said Mr. Jawkins, looking around the
room. "It is very bare and uncomfortable; but you will not know the room
when my fellows are through with it. You will have one of the finest
collections of books here in all England in a few hours. I have
purchased the Marquis of Queensberry's collection, and ordered them sent
here. Nothing gives so good an effect of color in a room as a library of
handsome books, you know. They have turned the _Times_ on, I see," he
remarked, pointing to the ticker. "I saw in it this morning that Richard
Lincoln and his daughter were to be your guests here. Your friend, sir,
I suppose? He certainly is not down in my list; great man, sir, but not
one of us."
"Mr. Lincoln is one of the men whom I most highly respect in the world,"
answered Mr. Windsor, curtly. "When do you expect the people in your
list to arrive?"
"Oh, they will come at all hours," answered Jawkins. "I must send a lot
of traps to the station to meet them. Have you been out to the stables,
sir? I have sent you one of the finest studs in all England. Do you
hunt, Mr. Windsor?"
"Never," answered Mr. Windsor.
"Since the farmers have taken to shooting the foxes," continued Mr.
Jawkins, "the noble old sport has gone all to pieces, even here; but you
drive four-in-hand, I hope. I have ordered a beautiful new break for
your use. But you will see, sir, all I have done for you. Now, if you
are at leisure for the list of the guests whom I have been able to
engage. When you have gone over it with me, Mr. Windsor, I think that
you will admit that it is a charming country-house party to have got
together on such short notice. First, you see, we have the Duke and
Duchess of Bayswater. I have engaged them for the first three days of
your stay here to give _eclat_ to your hospitality, at the price of a
diva and her accompanying tenor, I must admit. It is their very first
appearance professionally, and I think that I have done very well by
you."
Mr. Windsor gave a little groan, which Mr. Jawkins did not seem to
notice, however, as he continued:
"I fear that His Grace will not be in the best of spirits at first. He
is a grand type of a great nobleman, however, and worth double the money
which we pay him. Her Grace is of one of the few families in Great
Britain which are found in the Almanach de Gotha. She is like a
magnificent old ruin, almost feudal in fact, and as proud as Lucifer.
Her stare is said to be withering, and the poise of her head makes a
man's tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth."
"And I shall have to take her in to dinner for the next three days?"
groaned Windsor.
"Of course, my dear sir; but, believe me, you will enjoy it more than
Her Grace will," replied Jawkins. "Next comes the Archbishop of
Canterbury in point of order on my list, though he is of higher rank
than their Graces. Since the disestablishment of the Church, and the
forfeiture of the Church properties, he has, of course, been much
straitened financially. He must have a comfortable room and a warm fire,
and will conduct family prayers. There is some doubt about his coming,
though, I see, as he is far from well, but it will be easy to get a
prelate at short notice; I have dozens on my list, ready at call. Next
we have Lord Carrington, who is not very good company, but of
wonderfully fine family. His ancestors came over with William the
Conqueror, but as he has only L200 a year, he was not loath to put
himself under my charge. He is exceedingly particular as to his food and
drink, and is one of the best card-players in London. He used to make a
fine income from his cards; indeed, he does now in I. O. U.'s. By the
way, he inquired whether you played 'piquet' or 'bezique,' from which I
infer that he is looking for an antagonist with ready money."
Mr. Windsor laughed and slapped his knee with his thin, bony hand.
"Ah! the wind sets in that corner, does it?" he asked.
"I am afraid so," answered Jawkins.
"I do not mind taking chances, I admit," said Windsor; "but in the
stock-market I am in the position of the banker at the gaming-table. The
odds are in my favor. While at piquet this noble lord can get the better
of me. Who else have you, Jawkins?"
"I forgot my greatest prize, sir," said Jawkins, handing Mr. Windsor a
photograph. "What do you think of her?"
Mr. Windsor looked at the picture with a peculiar smile.
"She is a fine woman, Jawkins. We have as fine, however, in the States.
Who is she?"
"Mrs. Oswald Carey, to be sure. Have you never seen her face before, Mr.
Windsor? She is considered to be the most beautiful woman in London. Her
husband, of course, is left there; he cares only for brandy and soda and
baccarat, and would be very much in the way. I believe that he used to
have a place under government, but was ousted last year, probably for
cause, wonderful as that seems now. But she is a charming woman, and I
find that she is the most sought after of any one on my list--that is to
say, with the hosts; though the hostesses sometimes object to her,
simply from envy of her good looks, for her good name cannot be
questioned while her husband is satisfied with her."
Mr. Windsor hummed a little; he was too new to the world of society not
to have old-fashioned views on the subject of a woman's fame.
"Go on with the list, please, Jawkins; time flies, and your presence
must be required to arrange the drawing-rooms."
"Very well, Mr. Windsor. Then Sir John Dacre, one of the biggest men in
England; I never have understood, sir, how I got him on my list. He is
so proud that I should have fancied that he would have--saving your
presence, sir--have broken stones in the street rather than bread as a
hired guest. For he is a noble fellow."
"Some woman at the bottom of it?" asked Mr. Windsor, carelessly.
"Something mysterious, certainly, for he absolutely refused to take any
fee," replied Mr. Jawkins. "Next comes Colonel Charles Featherstone, a
wild, scatter-brained soldier, who lost all his fortune in speculation
in your American cotton and grain futures. He is a great friend of John
Dacre, and they joined me at the same time. I am really giving you the
gems of my whole collection."
A flush of triumph spread over the man's round face as he continued his
list. "Next, I have three of the 'artiste' class, and here I am not so
successful, though to be sure I pick them up for almost nothing. There
is Erastus Prouty, who does the satirical 'society' articles and
collects fashionable gossip for the _Saturday Review_, a sniggering,
sneering chap, with a single eye-glass and immense self-conceit. He
called me a cad in his paper once, but I am above personal feeling, and
do not cut the man off from his income. Then, you have Herr Diddlej, the
great Norwegian pianist, who will shatter your piano in half an hour;
and, finally, Sydney, the wit, who, by the way, has disappointed me
greatly, as he has not made a repartee in a twelvemonth, nor has he set
the table in a roar. I reasoned with him the other day on the subject,
and gave him fair warning that this visit should be his last chance.
Still, I pity the man; he is a great _bon vivant_, and if he should lose
his reputation as a wit I fear that he would have to go to a workhouse
or on the London _Punch_. I have finished the list. How does it please
you?"
"I never say that I have made money until the shares are sold and paid
for," answered Mr. Windsor. "Your list sounds well, but I think I like
the old-fashioned way of asking friends to stay with me better. Still,
your plan is novel."
Mr. Jawkins seemed hurt, as an author would who had looked up from
reading the finest passage in his epic only to perceive that his auditor
was asleep and not spellbound. Jawkins believed in the "_idee_" Jawkins
as Napoleon did in his destiny.
"By your leave, Mr. Windsor, I shall go to my own room to arrange my
toilet, and then I must see about the disposition of the furniture,
bibelots and pictures, and attend to the preparations for the reception
of the guests. You need not meet them until just before dinner, when I
shall be on hand to present them to you. I cannot be here after
to-night. I must start to-morrow morning for Hampshire, where Prince
Petroloff demands my services. You see, I am a hard-worked man, Mr.
Windsor."
"So you are for an Englishman, Mr. Jawkins. Then I suppose that it is
necessary that you should attend to all the details of your profession
personally. By the way, my daughter tells me that she has asked young
Geoffrey Ripon, who used to be on the British Legation at Paris, where
we were two summers ago. You must arrange for him at the dinner-table."
"Ah, the Earl of Brompton! He is not a client of mine, but I have my
eye on him. His earthly possessions consist of about five acres of land,
a tumble-down hut near by, and a double-barrelled shotgun, and he lost
his secretaryship when the new administration made its clean sweep of
the offices. They said he was going to marry a rich girl once, I
believe."
"It seems that he did not," said Mr. Windsor, rising from his seat.
Mr. Jawkins bowed and bustled from the room, and Mr. Windsor soon heard
his sharp voice ordering the army of workmen in the adjacent rooms with
the precision and authority of a field-marshal.
The situation amused and at the same time disconcerted the humorous
American, as he settled back in a chair before the great wood fire which
crackled in the chimney. Though the chair was soft and yielding he did
not look comfortable, for men with long, bony, angular figures never
seem to look at their ease.
Abraham Windsor's name twenty years before the date of this story would
not have added to the marketable value of the most modest promissory
note in the money markets of Chicago, to which city he had come fresh
from his father's farm in upper Illinois; but at this time it was a
tower of strength in financial quarters, and men counted his wealth by
tens of millions.
He was the Jupiter of the financial world, and men said that when his
iron-gray locks fell over each other, as he nodded, Wall Street trembled
and Lombard Street crashed; so that it seemed only from forbearance that
he did not sweep all the chips upon the great gaming-table of the world
into his deep pockets. His sudden trip to Europe had caused much
discussion. Some knowing ones whispered that he had bought a
controlling interest in the Bank of England from the assignees in
bankruptcy of the Brothkinders, with the object of making a panic in
trade by a sudden raise of the rate of discount to six per cent; others,
that he had come over to unload upon the British public his shares in
the Hudson Bay and Cape Horn Railroad Company.
He was amused by the wild rumors, for he had, in truth, come to England
with no deep-laid scheme or motive, but simply because his daughter had
ordered his doing so; for while Abraham Windsor ruled the shares market
and the world of speculation, a certain young woman ruled him, and the
hard-headed man of affairs, who could outwit an Israelite banker, was as
wax under her dainty fingers. At the close of the last season at
Newport, Miss Margaret had ordered her father, as she poured out his
coffee at breakfast, to engage a country house in England for the
winter. Mr. Windsor looked up from the New York _Herald_, which likened
him to his Satanic Majesty in one column and described his new steam
yacht in another, and he said, "Aye, aye, miss," to her order.
And straightway after breakfast he went to the Casino Club and
telephoned to Jarley Jawkins for his list of estates to rent in England,
for he knew full well that whether Wall Street or the heavens crashed
Miss Maggie's orders were to be obeyed. She selected Ripon House from
Jawkins's list, and her father hired it, although he had a leaning
toward Windsor Castle, which the Republic wished to lease for a term of
years, or to sell upon easy terms.
Every one in Paris two years before had said that the penniless young
Englishman, Lord Ripon, wished to make a rich marriage, and that the
capricious Miss Windsor, after having broken, cracked or temporarily
discouraged a sufficient number of hearts, was at last ready to accept a
lord and perhaps a master. But in the middle of the season the British
Legation was recalled, and Geoffrey, after a few words of farewell,
disappeared, and from the day of his leaving Paris Miss Windsor had
heard nothing of him. She did not know herself whether she cared for
him; he was good-natured and amusing, and she liked to have him talk to
her and be her slave, but when he was gone, the world was not a blank to
her.
Still, it piqued her that Lord Brompton had effaced himself so
completely from her life. "He might, at least, have written to let me
know that he lived," she kept thinking. Of course she knew the name of
his old estate, and she knew that he owned the porter's lodge and the
few acres around it, for he had told her once that he still owned a
little box in England, and that when the worst came to the worst he
intended to crawl into it and shut the lid. When Jawkins sent his list
of estates for rent, and she saw the name of Ripon House on it, her
heart gave a little jump. Mr. Windsor had, of course, known of the
affair between Lord Geoffrey and his daughter, and had neither approved
nor disapproved of it. He knew that, if she made up her mind to marry,
he would be consulted only as a matter of form. When she had informed
him on their arrival that Lord Brompton was living in the neighborhood,
and that she meant to invite him to dinner very soon, the shrewd old man
smiled grimly, and acquiesced in her plan.
As her father sat musing before the fire, the door opened suddenly, and
Maggie bounded into the room.
"Has Jawkins arrived, papa?" she asked.
"Yes; we have just been going over his list of guests together. By the
way, Maggie, is your young man to be our guest?"
"Oh, papa!" Maggie exclaimed, perching herself upon one of his knees and
stroking his chin with one of her dimpled hands, "how can you be so
ill-bred as to speak of any one as my young man? Surely I have no
proprietary rights over any man, save one very nice old fellow, who is
so loyal to his sovereign that he never thinks of complaining of the
injustice of taxation without representation."
"You reverse the ordinary process with me; subjects have been wont to
blow up their sovereigns," answered her father, with a chuckle, "and you
blow up me. You have not told me about Lord Brompton. It is a long time
since you have seen him before to-day."
"Two whole years. He seems so dispirited."
"At not having escaped you?"
"Oh, you wicked old capitalist; not at all. At having been so long
separated from me. It was very pleasant to see him again. He is such a
friend of mine. I should say that he interested me more than any of the
others."
"Ah, that unfortunate panorama of others," laughed her father.
"Yes, poor fellows," said Maggie, a little regretfully, "but then I
think that most of them had an eye to the main chance, papa. Lord
Brompton has not, I know."
Mr. Windsor smiled.
"I hope not, my dear. What is he doing here?"
"What the world has forgotten to do; what he can do more graciously than
any man I know--nothing," she answered.
"I should think that a young man with the world before him might find
something better to do than to mope in a porter's lodge, looking
mournfully at the lands which were his father's. What does he intend to
do in the world?"
"Oh, he said nothing of his plan of life," said Miss Windsor; "but he
seemed blue and restless. I think that there is something on his mind."
"These aristocrats, fallen from their high estate, are really in a
pitiable condition," said Windsor. "I feel like a cad to have made the
arrangement which I have with Jawkins. I wish that I were scot free from
the whole business. Poor people, how they must hate me in advance, and
what a vulgarian they must think me to be."
"Jawkins says that it is a recognized system, papa, you remember,"
answered Maggie. "After all, if you wish a great tenor or a
violin-player at your parties, you pay them for it. If you wish a duke
to awe or a beauty to charm your guests, why should you not hire them?
This is a commercial age. The poor people must live, and if they can
only awe or charm, there is no harm in their receiving pay for their
sole merits."
"You should have been bred to the bar, Maggie," laughed her father. "You
are an eloquent advocate."
There was a rattling of wheels up the driveway, and the great hall doors
were heard to open.
"Some of our guests have arrived," remarked Mr. Windsor. "I hope that
Jawkins has made all his arrangements for their reception."
Just then the door opened and Mr. Jawkins entered carefully dressed. His
manner was quiet and his voice subdued, as if he were whispering in a
cathedral, as he said:
"Their Graces the Duke and Duchess have done you the honor of coming
under your roof, Mr. Windsor. They are very much fatigued by their
journey, and have retired to their apartments."
"We shall meet them at Philippi before the action, shall we not?" asked
Miss Windsor.
"Yes, and meanwhile I shall do everything that I can for the comfort of
your guests and the arrangement of the house. Believe me, I deeply feel
the gravity of the situation," he continued, as he bowed himself out of
the room.
"And so do I," said Mr. Windsor to his daughter. "I would rather face an
army of irate stockholders than our guests this evening."