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(The Library of Congress)
Harper's Handy Series
Issued Weekly
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Copyright by Harper & Brothers November 27, 1885
Subscription Price per Year, 52 Numbers, $15
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Entered the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter
A BARREN TITLE
A Novel
BY T. W. SPEIGHT
AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE" ETC.
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_Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful, after all_
Dr. JOHNSON
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
1885
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. SHABBY-GENTEEL.
II. AT THE BROWN BEAR.
III. NEGOTIATIONS.
IV. TERMS PROPOSED.
V. TERMS ACCEPTED.
VI. MILD LUNACY.
VII. "SWEET COZ."
VIII. "GOOD-BYE."
IX. TRANSFORMATION.
X. INFATUATION.
XI. CONFIDENTIAL.
XII. CECILIA AND THE COUNTESS.
XIII. "YOUNG PILLBOX."
XIV. "TWELVE IT IS."
XV. CECILIA PHILOSOPHIZES.
XVI. PALLIDA MORS.
XVII. GOLDEN DREAMS.
XVIII. UP A LADDER.
XIX. P. P. C.
A BARREN TITLE.
CHAPTER I.
SHABBY-GENTEEL.
It was about half-past two on a sunny February afternoon when Mr.
John Fildew put his nose--aquiline and slightly purple as to its
ridge--outside the door of his lodgings for the first time that day,
and remarked to himself, with a shiver, that the weather was "beastly
cold." After gazing up the street and down the street, and seeing
nothing worth looking at, he shut the door behind him and strolled
leisurely away.
Hayfield Street, in which Mr. Fildew's lodgings were situate, was,
despite its name, as far removed, both in appearance and associations,
from anything suggestive of country or rural life as it well could be.
It was of the town towny. Every house in it--and they were
substantial, well-built domiciles, dating back some seventy or more
years ago--was let out to three or four families, while in many cases
the ground-floors had been converted into shops, in one or other of
which anything might be bought, from a second-hand silk dress or
sealskin jacket to a pennyworth of fried fish or a succulent cow-heel.
In whatever part of the street you took your stand a couple of taverns
were well within view, and, as a matter of course, there was a
pawnbroker's emporium "just round the corner." It is needless to say
that the street swarmed with children of all ages and all sizes, and
that you might make sure of having the dulcet tones of a barrel-organ
within earshot every ten minutes throughout the day. It was situate
somewhat to the west of Tottenham-court Road, and ran at right angles
with one of the main arteries that intersect that well-known
thoroughfare.
In this populous locality Mr. Fildew and his wife rented a
drawing-room floor, consisting of three rooms, and including the use
of a kitchen below stairs; and here they had lived for between six and
seven years at the time we make Mr. Fildew's acquaintance. As we shall
see a great deal of that gentleman before the word Finis is written to
this history, it may perhaps be as well to introduce him with some
particularity to the reader before setting out with him on his
afternoon stroll.
John Fildew at this time was about fifty-two years of age, but looked
somewhat older. Thirty years previously he had been accounted a very
handsome man, and there were still sufficient traces of bygone good
looks to make credible such a tradition. But the once clear-cut
aquiline nose was now growing more coarse and bibulous-looking with
every year, and the once shapely waist was putting on a degree of
convexity that troubled its possessor far more than any other change
that time had seen fit to afflict him with. As yet he was by no means
bald, and his iron-gray hair, however thin it might be at the crown,
was still plentiful at the sides and back, and being seldom operated
upon by the tonsorial scissors, its long, straggling ends mingled with
the tangled growth of his whiskers and lay on the collar of his coat
behind. Grizzled, too, were whiskers, beard, and mustache, but all
unkempt and apparently uncared for, growing as they listed, and only
impatiently snipped at now and again by Mr. Fildew himself, when his
mustache had grown so long as to be inconvenient at meal-times. His
eyes were his best feature. They were dark, piercing, and deep-set,
and were overhung by thick, bushy brows, which showed as yet no
signs of age. Their ordinary expression was one of cold, quiet
watchfulness, but they were occasionally lighted up by gleams of a
grim, sardonic humor, accompanied by a half-contemptuous smile and at
such times it was possible to understand how it happened that many not
over-observant people came to regard him as a genial, good-hearted,
easy-tempered fellow, when, in truth, there was scarcely one touch of
real geniality in his composition.
Unshorn and unkempt as Mr. Fildew might appear as regards his hair and
whiskers, shabby-genteel as he might be in point of attire, he still
carried himself as one who holds himself superior in some measure to
the ordinary run of his fellows. His boots might bear unmistakable
traces of having been patched, but they were carefully polished and
well-set up at the heels. His trousers might be old, and it is
possible that they too might be patched on certain parts not visible
to the public eye, but they were well ironed at the knees, and were
strapped over his boots _à la militaire_. His frock-coat--always worn
tightly buttoned--might be threadbare, inked here and there at the
seams, and not after the latest fashion, but it had the merit of being
an excellent fit. His hat, too, might be of ancient date, and
suspiciously shiny in places, but it was always carefully brushed, and
was worn with an air of assurance and _aplomb_ that made its defects
seem superior to the virtues of many newer head-coverings. Mr.
Fildew's linen might be old, possibly darned, but such portion of it
as was visible to the world at large was at least spotlessly white:
there was some one at home who took care of that. His attire was
completed by a deep, military-looking stock, a pair of faded buckskin
gloves, and a substantial Malacca cane with a silk tassel. Being
naturally a little short-sighted, he always carried an eyeglass, but
rarely made use of it in the streets.
And yet Mr. Fildew's shabby attire was not altogether a matter of
necessity with him. One day his son Clement ventured to say, "Father,
I wish you would go to my tailor, and let him set you up with some new
toggery."
Clem was brushing the collar of his father's coat at the time, and the
remark was made laughingly, but Mr. Fildew turned with a scowl and
confronted his son. "Confound your tailor, sir!" he cried. "And you,
too," he added next moment. "Do you think I'm a pauper, that you offer
to pay for my clothes? If you are ashamed to be seen out with me,
remember, sir, that there are always two sides to a street." And with
that Mr. Fildew turned on his heel in high dudgeon.
Clement and his mother exchanged glances of dismay. "You know how
peculiar your father is, dear," said Mrs. Fildew afterwards, "and what
little things sometimes touch his dignity. It was injudicious of you
to say what you did."
Clement shrugged his shoulders. "I have lived with my father all my
life, and yet I confess that I only half understand him," said the
young man. "At times he is a complete enigma to me."
"I have lived with him more years than you have, and I think that I
almost understand him: almost, but not quite," responded Mrs. Fildew,
with a smile. "But then a woman always does understand a man better
than another man can hope to do."
Clement Fildew might well say that his father was an enigma to him.
Although the latter refused so indignantly to allow his son to be at
the expense of refurnishing his wardrobe, he was not too proud to
accept from him his weekly supply of pocket-money. But then the money
in question found its way from Clement's pocket to that of his father
after such a delicate and diplomatic fashion that the susceptibilities
of Mr. Fildew had never hitherto been wounded in the transaction.
Every Friday Clement placed in his mother's hands the sum of one
guinea. The sovereign and shilling in question were wrapped up by Mrs.
Fildew in a piece of tissue-paper, and quietly deposited by her in a
certain drawer in her husband's dressing-table. By Saturday morning
the tiny packet would have disappeared. No questions were asked;
neither Mrs. Fildew nor her husband ever spoke to each other on the
matter but silence has often a meaning of its own, and it had in this
case.
Mr. Fildew having shut the door of his lodgings behind him, walked
slowly down the street with the preoccupied air of a man who is busily
communing with himself. "I must ask Clem to lend me half a sovereign,"
he muttered. "The necessity is an unpleasant one, but there's no help
for it. I feel certain I could have given that fellow last night a
drubbing at a carom game, but he was too many for me at the spot
stroke. _Experientia docet_."
Unfastening a couple of buttons of his frock-coat, Mr. Fildew inserted
a thumb and finger into his waistcoat pocket, and drew therefrom a
sixpence. "My last coin," he murmured. "I really must not touch a cue
again for another month."
Mr. Fildew was methodical in many of his habits. There was one tavern
at which he made a point of calling within ten minutes of leaving home
every afternoon. It had a little dark, private bar with cane-bottomed
stools, where the gas was kept half turned on all day long. Here Punch
and other comic papers were always to be found. Somehow, Mr. Fildew
liked the place, but although he had called at it daily for years, no
one behind the bar knew either his name or anything about him. He now
pushed open the swing-doors and went in. In answer to his nod--there
was no need for him to speak--the barman brought him fourpennyworth of
brown brandy and cold water, together with a minute portion of cheese
on the point of a knife. Mr. Fildew munched his cheese, glanced at the
cartoon in Punch, sipped up his brandy-and-water, nodded a second time
to the barman, and went.
Mr. Fildew walked jauntily along, whistling under his breath. The
brandy had imparted a glow to his feelings and a glow to his
imagination: the flame would soon drop down again, he knew, but he was
philosopher enough to enjoy it while it lasted.
Elderly, shabby-genteel individuals are by no means scarce about the
West End of London on sunny afternoons--inveterate _flâneurs_ whose
"better days" are over forever. But Mr. Fildew was something more than
merely shabby-genteel there was about him a style, a carriage, an air
undefinable, but not to be mistaken, of broken-down distinction, which
induced many passers-by to turn and glance at him a second time as he
"took" the pavement with his slow military stride, his eyes fixed
straight before him, and his nose held high in air.
In a few minutes he found himself in Oxford Street. Crossing this as
soon as there was a break in the string of vehicles, he took his way
towards the mazes of Soho. Stopping at a certain door, he gave one
loud rap with the knocker followed by two quick ones, and next moment
the door opened, apparently of its own accord, and Mr. Fildew walked
in, after which the door shut itself behind him. He had evidently been
there before, for without a moment's hesitation he ascended the first
flight of stairs, turned to the left down a short passage, and,
opening a door at the end of it, found himself in a roomy and
well-lighted studio.
Its only occupant was a very little bandy-legged man with a luxuriant
crop of curly hair, who was sitting on a low stool in front of a big
canvas, palette and brush in hand and a brier-root pipe between his
teeth. John Fildew looked round with an air of disappointment.
"Clem not at home?" he asked of the little man.
"Oh, Mr. Fildew, is that you?" said the latter, turning quickly. "I
thought it was Clem come back. He's gone to see Pudgin, the dealer.
Won't be long, I dare say."
"This is the third time I've called and not found him at home."
"All, just your luck, ain't it?" said the other, coolly. It would
almost have seemed from the way he spoke as if he held Mr. Fildew in
no particular regard.
The latter made no reply, but strode across the room and came to a
halt immediately behind the little painter.
"I'm putting the finishing touches to the _pedes_ of my saint, Mr.
Fildew. I wonder whether the holy men of olden time were ever troubled
with corns or bunions. I suppose it wouldn't do to paint them with
any. Rather too realistic, eh?"
"Intended for the Academy, I suppose?"
"If their high mightinesses will deign to find it hanging room--which
is somewhat problematical."
Mr. Fildew's cough plainly implied, "I should think it very
problematical indeed."
"Now, about Clem's picture I don't think there can be any doubt
whatever," said the generous-hearted little man. "They must be dolts,
indeed, if they reject that. It's far and away the best thing Clem's
done yet. That boy, sir, has a great career before him."
"From a painter's point of view, I presume you mean?" said Mr. Fildew,
with a sneer.
"Precisely so. From a painter's point of view. What other point of
view could you expect me to take?"
"No other, I suppose. _Chacun à son métier_. But the words, 'a great
career,' hardly associate themselves in my mind with anything achieved
by means of a brush and a paint-pot."
"A paint-pot, indeed! Let me tell you, sir--but you are only chaffing
me, Mr. Fildew--only trying to set my Welsh blood boiling that you may
have a quiet laugh at me in your sleeve. But, joking apart, sir, you
ought really to have a look at Clem's picture. It's there on the other
easel. Shall I lift the cover for you?"
"Not to-day, thank you, Macer. I'm not i' the vein. How is it possible
for a man to have any proper appreciation of the fine arts who hasn't
a sou in the world to bless himself with?"
"If I might venture to offer, Mr. Fildew--" said Macer, doubtfully. He
knew something of his visitor's queer moods and sudden spurts of
temper, and shook in his shoes as he made the offer.
"Just what I was coming to. You're a good fellow, Macer," responded
Mr. Fildew, with much affability. Tony felt immensely relieved.
"The truth is, I just looked in to see whether Clem had a spare
half-sovereign about him; I've run rather short, as most of us do at
odd times."
"If you are in a hurry, Mr. Fildew, and you will allow me--" said
Macer, as he opened his purse.
"Thanks. Yes, I am in a hurry, and you can settle with Clem, you
know;" and so the half-sovereign was quietly transferred to Mr.
Fildew's pocket.
"Any message for Clem, Mr. Fildew?"
"No, I think not, Macer. You may just tell him that his mother seems a
little more cheerful and in less pain yesterday and to-day. But,
really, I don't wish you to burden your memory with such a trifle."
"It won't seem a trifle to Clem. I could not tell him anything that
would please him better."
"Hum! Not even the news that the Academy had accepted his picture?"
asked Mr. Fildew, dryly.
"Not even to hear that would afford him the pleasure he would derive
from knowing that his mother was really better."
"Ah, yes, Clem's a good boy; a model son in every way." Macer looked
up quickly, but Mr. Fildew, with his glass in his eye, was apparently
contemplating a cobweb in a far corner of the room. "But I must go
now," he added, as he turned on his heel. "Don't forget to ask Clem
for the half-sovereign; and if neither of you should be so fortunate
as to have your picture hung by the Academy, I hope you won't go and
hang yourselves instead." And, with one of his peculiar smiles and a
curt nod of the head, he left the room.
"Poor Clem! What a pity Providence didn't provide him with a different
kind of father," said Tony Macer, as he turned to his work again.
"Egad! if the fellow were worth ten thousand a year, he could hardly
give himself more airs."