Mr. Jericho sat in his study; and still his dream sat astride his
spirit. Much of the first distinctness of the vision had faded in the
morning light; nevertheless, he could piece out sufficient from its
mistiness to make him dull and dumpish. He was not a superstitious
man—certainly not. He would despise himself to be troubled by a
dream; and then he shifted in his seat, and took up the newspaper
and laid it down again. And then he thought all dreams were to be
read backwards: and thus, his vision of the Bank Cellars was to be
mockingly realised by the Queen’s Bench. And then he looked about
him and took heart. Pooh! dreams were playthings for conjurors and
gypsies; quite beneath the thought of a reasonable, a respectable
man. He had often dreamt he had been hanged, and what had come of
it? Nothing; good or bad. Mr. Jericho again took up the newspaper,
and was endeavouring to interest himself in the affairs of his
holiness the Pope, when the door opened. He winced, for he knew the
feminine turn of the handle; he winced, we say, but nevertheless
manfully with the paper before his eyes tried to keep his soul
apart—far away at the Court of Rome. He heard the well-known rustling
of the well-known skirts, and shivered just a little at the sound.
Three or four of the softest footsteps told distinctly on the
silence; and then—he knew it, though he saw it not—Mrs. Jericho in
her morning muslin, subsided upon the opposite chair like a summer
wave.
Mr. Jericho, almost without knowing it, had shifted himself to the
Tyrol, and was trying to wonder at the next move of the Emperor of
Austria, when Mrs. Jericho slightly coughed. Upon this, Jericho, a
little agitated, found himself among the list of bankrupts; then
he took flight to the House of Commons; where he became intensely
absorbed by the Sugar Question, in which he would have been happy to
be busied all the morning, when the wife of his bosom observed,—
“Mr. Jericho”——
“My dear, just now it is impossible,” said Jericho, shifting.
“What is impossible, Mr. Jericho?” asked the lady, with cold wonder.
“Why, just now—I—I cannot let you have any money,” said Jericho; and
he wiped his brow.
“Did I ask for money, Mr. Jericho?” inquired the wife, wounded by the
imputation.
“Eh! Why—humph! Didn’t you?” cried Jericho, somewhat incredulous.
“Will you oblige me, Mr. Jericho, by looking at that?” and Mrs.
Jericho handed in the Carraways’ letter.
“Oh! Ha!” cried Jericho—“An invitation to their grand party. Very
kind of ’em. People who ought to be cultivated. Considering the money
they have, they don’t hold their head quite high enough, to be sure;
nevertheless, very good people; very rich people. We shall go, my
dear, of course.”
Mrs. Jericho folded her hands together, dropt them gently into
her lap, then turned her very placid face full in the face of her
husband, and slowly, and very anxiously put to him these words—“And
_how_ are we to go, Mr. Jericho?”
“How, my dear!” cried Jericho, in the darkest ignorance—“How would
you go?”
“As your family, Mr. Jericho; as your wife and daughters”—said the
lady, “we ought to go drest.”
“Why, yes, my dear”—said Jericho—“’twould look very particular, if
you didn’t. He! he!”
“I admire wit, true wit, Mr. Jericho,” said the lady, with a pitying
smile; “but no real gentleman ever descends to humour. Major
Pennibacker never—but that is not the question. In a word, Mr.
Jericho, your wife and daughters have no clothes to go in. Therefore,
as you have decided to accept the invitation, may I ask, when can you
let me have some money?”
Jericho dropt the paper, pushed himself from the table, and groaned.
“Oh, very well, very well”—said Mrs. Jericho, with cutting
vivacity—“I can write a refusal: of course; we are ill, or are going
out of town, or have a better engagement; anything will do.”
“Now, my dear creature, will you be reasonable?” cried Jericho,
intreatingly. “What _do_ you want?”
Mrs. Jericho replied with admirable brevity. “Want! Everything.”
“Impossible,” said Jericho.
“If we cannot go like your wife and daughters, we had better—far
better for your credit—stay at home. Well, I did not think it would
come to this”—said Mrs. Jericho, a little affected—“I did not think
when I consented to marry you, that you would suffer my dear girls to
want the necessaries of life.”
“Why, you don’t call fine extravagant clothes the necessaries of
life?” cried Jericho.
“Yes, I do, sir; for such a party as that of Carraways; and for
girls that are marriageable. Why all the world—that is, the richest
people in the world—will be at the fête. And are the poor things, the
dear girls, to remain always at home—kept in the dark, like jewels
in boxes—for nobody to see them? Why, Mr. Jericho, you’re a king
Herod to the dear children, and nothing better. Indeed to kill them
outright, would be more merciful.”
“My dear creature”—Mrs. Jericho snatched an angry look at the
word—“my dear Sabilla, what would you have me do? I’m sure I don’t
want to keep the girls at home. I’m sure—” Jericho spoke with
increasing earnestness—“I’m sure I should be delighted to see them
married. Why, you must confess, my dear; you must own, my love, that
it was only a fortnight ago, I gave you fifty pounds, for”—
“And what’s fifty pounds among three women?” asked Mrs. Jericho.
Jericho, with early habits of clerkship, quickly replied—“Sixteen
pounds, thirteen and fourpence a piece.”
“I have told you, Mr. Jericho, that I admire wit—but no low humour.
As much wit as you please, sir, but no buffoonery. Very well”—and
Mrs. Jericho rose—“I’ll write and decline the engagement.”
“You know best, my dear, of course. I’ll leave it all to you;” and
Jericho resumed the paper. A brief pause; and then he added,—“I’m
sure I only wish I was made of wealth; but, I can’t make money, you
know; I wish I could. The expenses of this family”—
“No, no, Mr. Jericho; not of _this_ family,” and Mrs. Jericho hissed
on the pronoun: “not _this_.”
“My good woman,” cried Jericho, falling back in his seat with a
hopeless stare, “what _do_ you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean; and—no, no, Mr. Jericho—I am not
to be deceived by such hypocrisy. I have tried to smother the dark
thought as it rose; I have struggled to crush the scorpion suspicion
that preys upon my peace; I have wrestled with myself to hide my
sorrow from the world, that my wound”—
“Wound!” cried Jericho, striking the table; “in heaven’s name, woman,
what wound?”
“That my wound might bleed inwardly”—continued the wife—“but it is
impossible for me to consent to be quite a fool: no, indeed, you ask
too much. Not quite a fool, Mr. Jericho.”
Let us at once explain. Let us possess the reader with the dark
thought that, fitfully, would shadow the clear day of Mrs. Jericho’s
life; let us at once produce upon the page the scorpion complained of.
Mrs. Jericho was so convinced that her household expenses were of
such petty amount; was so assured that the family, in its various
outlay, cost the head of the house next to nothing,—that when Mr.
Jericho pleaded lack of means, the scorpion aforesaid, with the
malice of its kind, would insinuate the cruellest, the falsest
suspicion of the truth and constancy of the husband. Not, however,
that Mrs. Jericho believed it: let us do her so much justice. Hence,
when—to the first horror of Jericho—she hazarded an opinion that
“there must be another wife and family out of doors, or where could
the money go to?”—when to Jericho’s contempt, astonishment, and
wrath, his honoured wife implied so withering an accusation, the good
woman herself had really no belief in the treason. It was the very
waywardness of affection; it was love-in-idleness frolicking now
with a thorn, and now a nettle. This, however, was in earlier days.
As time wore on, Mrs. Jericho would press the thorn, would flourish
the nettle, with greater force and purpose, and possibly for this
reason; she had found the instruments of unexpected value. Jericho,
to escape them, would make the required concession, would consent to
the expense demanded. Briefly, Mrs. Jericho had only to call up the
shadowy wife and family out-of-doors, to compel Jericho to concede to
any request for the living spouse and children beneath his roof. So
useful, so valuable were these shadows found by Mrs. Jericho, that it
is not to be wondered at that the good woman, without even confessing
it to herself, should, as time wore on, believe them to be something
more than shades; and yet not real things; on the other hand, not
altogether ideal mist. Having explained this much, the reader will
take the taunts of Mrs. Jericho at their real worth; will value them
as so much thistle-down that, blown about by idle air, nevertheless
contains in its floating lightness the seed of thistles.
Mrs. Jericho remained the undisputed possessor of the last word. With
a despairing twitch, Jericho had again seized the newspaper. “Well,
then”—said the wife—“it is no use my wasting my time; I will write to
the Carraways that we shan’t come.”
“You will do just as you please, I am sure, my dear. You always do,”
said Jericho.
“Not I indeed; oh dear no. But, I dare say, your wife out of doors
does as she likes; I have no doubt of that. I am sure, again and
again have I wished I had been a Hindoo wife; then I had sacrificed
myself upon the pyre and been happy—but I am rightly served.”
Jericho, resolutely, held fast by the newspaper, determining to
forego his allowed share of the conversation in favour of his wife:
she should have all the talk; he would not deprive her of a single
syllable. “And, Mr. Jericho, you have decided? We are not to go to
Jogtrot Lodge? We are to miss—what I consider, thinking of my poor
dear girls—miss one of the greatest opportunities of the season!
And this because you spend out of doors what should go to your own
family. I dare say, if I could only see—and I will, if I live, that
I am determined upon—if I could only see how other people are drest;
if I could only know the jewellery that’s lavished upon them; if I
could only know what they cost, it would be pretty plain why we are
debarred the common decencies of life. Once, I was foolish, weak
enough to believe that your wife and family—I mean the wife and
family under this roof—had all your money, and all your thoughts;
but I have lived to find the bitter contrary.” Still Jericho held
manfully by the newspaper; and with his blood burning and bubbling in
his ears, would not make reply—not one word. “And you are resolved
that the dear girls shall not go? You have made your mind up to
blight their future prospects? You are determined to keep us all here
like nuns, that other people—I said other people, Mr. Jericho—should
run riot in what lawfully belongs to your own family? And your excuse
is—you haven’t the means! But I know better.”
And here Jericho, with a wan look, laid down the newspaper; then
ventured to glance appealingly in the face of Mrs. Jericho, and
sighed.
Mrs. Jericho was not to be moved. She was there to fulfil a great
purpose. She had, or thought she had, some solemn warning in her
breast that the approaching festival at Jogtrot Lodge portended
greatness to one, haply to both her daughters: and the children
should make a seemly preparation for their destiny. They should be
drest and adorned for the best luck that could befal them. With
whatever state it might please fortune to smile upon them, they
should be worthy of her most affectionate notice. This determination
every moment grew stronger in the heart of the mother, who dropt her
cold regards upon the newspaper, and then slowly raised it in her
hand. A cruel, cutting smile of irony sharpened her lips. “Oh yes,”
she said, “I see what has engaged you in this paper. It’s very plain!”
“What’s plain?” asked Jericho.
“Oh, the advertisement here. ’Pon my word, I think the press of the
country has come to something, when it brings morning vipers into the
bosom of a family.”
“Morning vipers! What is the woman after?”
“The liberty of the press! The libertinism, Mr. Jericho, that’s the
word. Now, do you suppose that I can be so darkened, not to see that
this advertisement is addressed to you?” and Mrs. Jericho pointed her
finger like a dagger to the top of a column.
“Is the woman mad?” asked Jericho.
“No, sir; and it’s the wonder of all my friends—all who know your
conduct—that I am not. For this—this is enough to make me mad,” and
Mrs. Jericho read from the top column these mysterious words:—
BARBARA ***** is anxious to hear from J. The last Bank-note was
received. Darling S. is quite well; but prattles continually about
J.
“And seated before me you can read this! Why, of course, that’s where
your money goes,” and Mrs. Jericho, to be prepared, twitched forth
her pocket-handkerchief.
Jericho groaned and shook his head; silent, helpless, hopeless.
The wife interpreted everything with astonishing readiness. “Of
course;” she said, as though pleased with the discovery, “Barbara
writes to J. And who can J. be, but Jericho! And their darling S. who
prattles so, is Solomon;—of course, there can be no doubt of it. Mrs.
Barbara _Stars_ and your own ‘Solomon.’ It’s now all clear; and now
I’m sure of it; now I know where your money goes.”
It was very strange. At this moment, a smile suddenly broke
over Jericho’s face, and he looked straight at his wife. Mrs.
Jericho quickly drew up at the pleasant aspect of her lord. There
was something so queer, so odd in the man. Quite a new look of
satisfaction gleamed from his eyes, and his mouth had such a smile of
compliance! What could ail him!
“Jericho,” cried the wife, suddenly familiar.
“My dear—my love,” answered Jericho, the words dropping melted from
his heart.
“What—why—that is—I mean, what do you smile at? What makes you look
so very, very odd?”
“Really, my love,” said Jericho, with deepening tenderness, “I can’t
tell; but upon my word I don’t know how it is. I should think there
was a great lump of luck going to fall upon us. I—somehow, I—never
felt in such a pleasant humour in all my days. Upon my life, it _is_
strange! But everything about me seems to have a new glow—a strange
look of freshness in it. As true as I’m alive, Sabilla, you don’t
look above five-and-twenty. Never saw you look so young in all my
life.”
“There’s nothing so very—so particularly strange in that, Mr.
Jericho. But what is the matter with you? Anything in the paper
that”—
“Not at all; nothing—not a word. Ha! ha! well it is very odd; but I
somehow feel as if I could take everybody in the world—that is every
respectable person of course—take ’em all in my arms and embrace ’em.”
“I trust, Mr. Jericho,” said the wife—“I trust you have not been
eating opium? I have seen horrible examples in the East, and—no, you
have not been eating opium, Jericho?”
“Pooh! Opium! No drug in the world could make a man feel so happy as
I am now,” and Jericho snapt his fingers, and cut a caper. “Why, it’s
a bit of paradise.”
“He doesn’t look mad,” thought Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.
“I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain!
Wonderful!” Jericho trod up and down the room, and snapt his fingers;
now suddenly stopt at Mrs. Jericho, and—startled woman! she herself
could hardly believe it—and put his hand tenderly beneath her chin,
and inflicted upon her lips a vigorous kiss.
“Jericho! Well, this is stranger than everything,” said the
astonished wife.
“You cannot think, Sabilla, how happy I do feel,” and Jericho threw
himself in his chair, and rubbed his hands, and still looked joyously
about him. “Something’s going to happen.”
“Perhaps a new vein in the mines?” suggested Mrs. Jericho.
“Perhaps,” said Jericho, a little dubiously.
“And now, my dear, about this party to Jogtrot Hall. Are we to go?”
“Go! Of course,” said Jericho. “Let the dear girls go. I should be a
monster to refuse them. Besides, it’s only right they should go. And
Basil, too. A noble youth; a little too fond of rats and dogs,—but
a noble young fellow. Some day, no doubt, he’ll be an honour to
the bench. Fal lal de ral, lal, lal,” and Jericho’s full spirit
overflowed in song.
“It will not take a great deal of money, after all,” said Mrs.
Jericho.
“How much?” asked her husband, with a blithe carelessness.
“I think a hundred pounds—because I want the girls on such an
occasion to make a blow—I do almost think, yes I am nearly sure that
a hundred pounds, for we must have a few trinkets, will do pretty
well.”
“A hundred pounds, after all, isn’t much,” said Jericho, airily.
“Not with a great, a vital object in view,” responded his wife.
“And as the world goes,” said Jericho, “people who would be somebody
must make an appearance.”
“It is the compulsion of our artificial state of life: I wish it were
otherwise. But as it is so, my dear,—you will let me have the money?”
At this question a strangely pleasurable thrill passed through the
breast of Jericho; his heart glowed and expanded as it had never
done before; and he felt his hand drawn—as though some fairy pulled
at either finger end—to his bosom. His bare hand pressed his heart,
that, at the pressure, gave a sudden and delicious flutter.
“You will let me have the money?” repeated Mrs. Jericho.
Jericho answered not a word, but withdrew his hand from his breast:
between his finger and his thumb he held, in silver purity, a virgin
Bank of England note!
“What a dear, good creature you are, Jericho”—said his wife “to
surprise me in this manner! To bring a note for the exact amount with
you! Just a hundred! Well, you are a love,” and hastily pressing him
round the neck, Mrs. Jericho ran from the room, as though embarrassed
by the freedom.
And Jericho sat, with his heart beating the faster. Again, he placed
his hand to his breast; again drew forth another Bank note. He jumped
to his feet; tore away his dress, and running to a mirror, saw
therein reflected, not human flesh; but over the region of his heart
a loose skin of Bank paper, veined with marks of ink. He touched it;
and still in his hand there lay another note!
* * * * *
His thoughtless wish had been wrought into reality. Solomon Jericho
was, in very truth, a Man made of Money.