As St. Shekels clock struck twelve, the bridegroom awoke. Heavily
yawning, he called for Atkins. The faithful creature, hovering about
the door, immediately entered the room. “Atkins, what’s o’clock?”
demanded Hodmadod.
Atkins, afraid to give a direct reply, said, “Clock, sir? ha, sir!
don’t you know?”
“How the devil should I know?” asked Hodmadod, still yawning, and
then stretching himself, and rolling backwards and forwards, half
stupified by sleep. “What’s o’clock?”
“Why, sir”—Atkins was afraid to speak—“why, sir, it’s past twelve
o’clock.”
“Past twelve, eh? Past twelve,” grumbled Hodmadod, very drowsily.
“Do you recollect, sir,” and Atkins timidly approached the
subject—“do you at all recollect, sir, anything you had to do this
morning?”
“Humph!” grunted Hodmadod, with half-closed eyes.
Hereupon Atkins took up the bridal waistcoat, and shaking it—quite
as if he meant nothing—and smoothing it in the face of Hodmadod,
repeated the question. The bridegroom’s eyes gradually fixed
themselves upon the snowy garment: light and with it consciousness
gleamed within them. Suddenly, Hodmadod sat bolt upright in bed, and
violently and rapidly exclaimed—“Atkins, tell me, Atkins! Wasn’t I to
be married this morning?”
“This looks a little like it, sir,” said Atkins, at arm’s length
exhibiting the waistcoat.
Then Hodmadod, with a groan, fell back in his bed, and cried—“Atkins,
Stubbs has poisoned me; when I say poisoned me”—
“My dear fellow,” exclaimed Candituft, bursting into the room; “how
delighted am I at last to find you! What is the matter? Poison!
Attempted suicide? No doubt, to avoid this marriage. I always thought
your heart was not in it. But wherefore poison?”
“When I say poison, I mean—look there”—and Hodmadod pointed to the
phial. “Stubbs prescribed it; two doses, one at night, one in the
morning. Thought it quite the same to take ’em both at once—they were
only to strengthen my nerves, and they’ve”—
“I see; a narcotic. A double dose has been a tremendous
sleeping-draught,” said Candituft. “My dear friend—’tis a mercy you
ever woke again. I have only just left the Jerichos.”
[Illustration: _The Bride-groom!_]
“There’s no time to lose,” cried Hodmadod; “I feel dreadfully
stupid with the physic; when I say stupid, I mean I’ll be up,
dressed, and ready for church directly.”
“Too late, my dear boy,” said Candituft with touching solemnity. “I
came before to seek you—but your valet”—
“Acted according to orders, sir,” said Atkins. “Sir Arthur knows
that. He must clear me,” and assured of this, Atkins, with the
fullest self-satisfaction, left the room.
“Too late! How do you mean too late?” cried Hodmadod. “Never too late
to marry.”
“Too late to-day. We waited for you an hour; a full hour in the
church,” said Candituft.
“What a wretch I am!” exclaimed Hodmadod, striking the clothes with
his fist—“when I say a wretch, I mean a brute not fit to see the
light,” and executing his own sentence, he rolled his head in the
blankets. “Not fit to see the light,” he howled through the bed
clothes.
“Come, you must be comforted,” said Candituft. “Nevertheless, it was
a dreadful sight in the vestry. Enough to melt a heart of stone.”
Hodmadod groaned. “Mr. Jericho all colours with rage. Mrs. Jericho
still smiling, confident to the last.” Hodmadod, with much emotion,
shook his leg; and in smothered voice bellowed—“I don’t deserve it.”
Candituft continued. “Monica all tears. My sister—dear girl!—only
thoughtful of the happiness of others; regardless of her own
sufferings—but I will not dwell upon that—my sister, I say, doing all
she could to engage the attention of Agatha.”
“And—and—Agatha?” asked the culprit through the blankets. There was
no answer.—“Yes—my dear friend—tell me all her sufferings,” cried
Hodmadod in muffled voice—“all.”
“Well, I must say this much in her praise,” answered Candituft,
“she bore the delay with the greatest patience.” Gradually Hodmadod
unrolled his head from the blankets. “She talked and chatted away the
time in the prettiest and pleasantest manner.”
“You don’t say so?” cried Hodmadod, again showing his heated face
to the light, and staring in the eyes of the cool and traitorous
Candituft. “You don’t say so?”
“It might have been to disguise her real feelings,” said Candituft.
“Nevertheless, I must say, it did not seem like it. No; the fortitude
seemed genuine. I know your partiality—you like women with such
philosophy.”
“No, I don’t,” cried Hodmadod savagely. “When I say I don’t like ’em,
I mean I hate ’em.”
“It’s my mistake, my dear friend. Well, where was I? Oh, well—we
waited the hour; and when the clock struck we left the church,”
repeated Candituft.
“And Agatha?” moaned Hodmadod.
“Why, the little heroine skipped into her carriage, happy as a bird.”—
“She’s a flirt—a jilt”—cried Hodmadod. “I’m very much obliged to
Doctor Stubbs.”
“Do you really feel an obligation for that double dose?” asked
Candituft.
“I do—I do!” shouted Hodmadod, and he shook Candituft’s hand, and in
despair again rolled himself up in the bed-clothes.
* * * * *
It was a very wicked rumour! A vile and cruel insinuation! And when
we are made to feel the combined meanness and wickedness of such a
slander; when we are oppressed by the power of such calumny; when our
spirit faints beneath a sense of the poison,—how apt we are to wish
the world at once at an end, that truth may vindicate its lasting
triumph. “Shut the book, my dear”—it was thus an old man spoke to his
grandchild, reading a chronicle of atrocity; of blood, and fire, and
infanticide, and the rest—“shut the book, my child, and let us pray
for the Judgment.”
Poor little Agatha! When she was assured by several bosom friends
that it was well known throughout the world that Sir Arthur Hodmadod
had taken poison—only, happily, a powerful constitution had triumphed
over the deadly dose—poison for the sole, determined purpose of
avoiding marriage with Miss Agatha Pennibacker,—she wished at once
to sink into her grave, to be well quit of a world that could coin
and circulate such a wicked, wicked counterfeit. Nevertheless,
Hodmadod did not show himself at Jericho House. What then? Good
Doctor Stubbs gave daily intelligence of his amending health. Still,
Hodmadod did not write! Why, no; Stubbs had forbidden him any mental
exercise soever; his nerves were still in a jangle, and pen and ink
were luxuries, in his delicate condition, not to be tasted. Agatha
continued to be assured of the devotion, the unalterable passion of
Sir Arthur. And she was willing to believe it. Nevertheless—her heart
would whisper as much in her bosom—nevertheless, the smallest of
notes would have been thankfully received from the dearest of lovers,
and still not a line from Sir Arthur! Not a syllable to give hope of
his speedy convalescence! Not even a hint of an early day to carry
out the beautiful intention, so disastrously marred at the very foot
of St. Shekels altar. Well; a knowledge of the wicked truth oppresses
us, and without further delay, we will at once make known the
treachery of Candituft and the falsehood of the Baronet. As Agatha’s
heart is, for a time, doomed to be broken, the blow may as well come
down at once. The earlier the damage, the sooner the repair.
“It is enough to make a man leave civilised life, and wear
goatskins,”—said Candituft, on his next visit to Hodmadod—“to know
and feel the malignity of the family of man.”
“Certainly,” said Hodmadod, “it’s a family that will pick one another
to pieces. When I say pick”—
“To be sure. Now, what do you imagine, my dear friend—what do you
conceive to be the cause of your deferred marriage with the beautiful
Agatha?”—
“Why, the physic—the sleeping draught. Morphine, wasn’t it?” asked
the innocent Hodmadod.
“To be sure: but the world will not have it so. No—no. The world
declares that you had thought better of the business”—
“Yes?” cried the Baronet, a little impatient.
“And between the bride and poison, chose the drug,” and Candituft
spoke as one disgusted.
“Impossible! It can’t be!” exclaimed Hodmadod.
“My dear friend, I will not suffer myself to tell you how this
falsehood is propped—buttressed up I may say—by other lies. I heard
it avowed—malignantly avowed—that if you should, even now, marry Miss
Pennibacker, the young lady will be indebted for a husband, not to
his own choice, but entirely to a stomach-pump.”
“But it isn’t true, you know,” said the Baronet.
“What matters truth to a scoffing world? I must, however, say
that some—indeed a great many—excellent people were most kind,
most sympathetic. They entirely believed in the innocence of your
mistake: they kindly attributed your swallowing a double dose to the
unreflecting fervour of a lover. But at the same time, they one and
all declared, that in their opinion, the finger of fate was in it.”
“When you say the finger of fate you mean,—I was sent to sleep by the
kindness of Providence?”
“Exactly so. In a word, it is evident”—say reflecting people—“it is
evident that Sir Arthur was not to marry Miss Pennibacker.”
And—to be brief—the people were right. For, in a few days, Sir
Arthur wedded with Miss Candituft. And, when Agatha most needed the
protection of a husband! For never had Mr. Jericho shown himself such
a ruthless and intolerable tyrant. The servants began to declare he
was mad, and such sad belief every hour gained ground with Jericho’s
family. Mrs. Jericho thought she would seek counsel of Basil; and
then she feared to discover all her bodings to him. Again; it might
be only another of the frantic fits that had of late shaken her
helpmate; although this time, the insanity took a more terrible
development.
The Man of Money, though he had controlled his indignation, quitted
St. Shekel’s church an enraged and wounded individual. Yes; wounded
in his delicate sense of money. Sir Arthur Hodmadod had shown to the
world his contempt of the alliance—had proclaimed his indifference,
his scorn of Solomon Jericho! The slight, the insult put upon the
bride, was of little account—the blow was aimed at the father-in-law
through the daughter. Already the Man of Money thought of pistols;
and then, the risk of another hole through his monetary heart made
him at once resolve upon peace. For two days Jericho considered with
himself; brooded in silence over his new design. At length he was
resolved. At length, he had made the true discovery of the true value
of wealth. The value was power—not show. Now this great and original
discovery, as his disordered brain believed it, worked on him with
the rage of madness. It was now his fond conviction that the money he
bore about him, carried with it an immortal principle: if he ceased
to exhaust his heart—his bank of life—he should live for ever. He
would, therefore, not draw another note; no; not another. He would
live upon what he had. He would turn the foolish superfluities about
him into hard, tangible money. He would enjoy avarice; for avarice
was power. The miser was the ragged king, and the finest of fools
were his merest subjects. And with this thought, Jericho wandered
throughout his house; now muttering, now talking, and now threatening
the types and shows of wealth about him. He would no longer feed
the eyes of the world—a perilous waste—but govern men with a golden
sceptre. “Why, it was a vanity—a miserable vanity—the stupid pride
of the peacock—to spread before the world a splendid show! Now,
the magpie was a wiser creature that concealed its treasures.” And
then he—the Man of Money—had had enough of public homage. He would
therefore turn miser, and make men look upon his outside wretchedness
with wonder; make them bow and simper to his very tatters. Again,
mystery ever hung about the miser; for it was the serf-like weakness
of the poor to multiply his riches.
“Mrs. Jericho,” said the Man of Money. The trembling wife had been
summoned to receive her husband’s orders. She had scarcely power to
meet the eyes of her helpmate. In two days, twenty years seemed to
have gathered upon him. His face looked brown, thin, and withered
as the last year’s leaf. His whole body bent and swayed like a piece
of paper, moved by the air. As he held his hand aloof, the light
shone through it. Basil’s words again sounded in the woman’s ears:
it was plain, there was some horrid compact between her lord and the
infernal powers; or—it was all as one—the tyranny of conscience had
worn him to his present condition.
“Mrs. Jericho, madam, you will instantly bring me all your
diamonds—jewellery—all. Give the like orders to your daughters; the
mincing harpies that eat me.”
“My dear—my love!” cried the wife.
“My love! Well, well, you mean the same thing; but the words should
not be ‘my love’—but ‘my money.’”
“You are not well, Solomon. You have been vexed by this
disappointment; you have taken it too much to heart,” stammered Mrs.
Jericho.
“To heart! ha! ha! Very well—be it so. Heart and pocket, ma’am; all’s
one.”
“My dear, let me send for Doctor Stubbs.” The wife shrinkingly
approached the Man of Money, and—timidly as a wood-nymph might put
her hand upon a wolf—was about to encircle with her arm the neck of
Jericho.
“Away with you! I’ll have none of it. Woman’s arms! The serpents that
wind about a man’s neck, killing his best resolutions. Away with
you, and do as I command. Bring me all your treasures—all. And your
minxes! See that they obey me too. And instantly.”
“Yes, my love; to be sure,” said Mrs. Jericho; for she was all but
convinced that Solomon’s reason was gone, or going. It was best and
wisest for the time to be calm with him—to humour him. “And why, my
love, do you wish for these things? Of course, you shall have them.
But why?”
“To turn them into money, madam,” cried Jericho, rubbing his hands.
“We have had enough of the tom-foolery of wealth—I now begin to
hunger for the substance. I’ll do without fashion. I’ll have power,
madam; power.”
“Yes, Solomon; certainly. But tell me, dearest, is not fashion
power?” asked the wife, essaying a smile.
“The power of a fool. Am I a fool?” The wife raised her hands,
forbidding the thought. “What’s all this show—all this outside
trumpery? Do I enjoy it? Am I the master of it?”—
“Yes, love; of course,” said Mrs. Jericho.
“I say no—no. The fools, the wretches who come about us—’tis theirs
as much as mine. To see it is to have it. Now why should I rob myself
to feed the eyes of asses? No: I’ll have all my money all to myself.
I’ll keep the power in my own hands—in my own hands. I’ll raise an
army, an army, madam;” and Jericho chuckled, and his wife was more
convinced of his increasing insanity. “Now, woman, do you know what
an army is?”
“Of course, my dear; I should hope so,” and the wife still tried to
coax the madman.
“I mean, the rich man’s army; the miser’s army, if you will. Now
I propose to raise—let me see—let me see—a couple of million of
fighting men.”
“Mad! Past hope—mad!” thought the wife in despair.
“Do you hear me, woman?” roared the Man of Money, and he shook like a
green flag in the wind.
“Yes, love; every word—every syllable. Of course;” and again the wife
trembled.
“Two millions of fighting men. And how will I raise them? Why,
there’s your jewels; the jewels—for I’ll have every stone of ’em—of
those kittens, your daughters.”—
(“If I could only manage to send for Doctor Stubbs,” thought Mrs.
Jericho.)
“Then there’s this house and all its lumbering trumpery. And—and—that
cursed hermitage you made me buy for the time I was to be Prime
Minister of England.”—
(“Oh—that Doctor Stubbs would make a morning call!” silently prayed
the wife.)
“I shall turn all—all into fighting men. And such men! Ha! ha! they
are never killed; no—no; they multiply. Yes—yes”—and Jericho bent his
head, and joined his hands, “they increase and multiply.”—
(“He shall not be left alone,” determined Mrs. Jericho, with a
shiver.)
“And these millions of fighting men are men with the royal stamp upon
’em, Mrs. Jericho; men who sing a continual chorus _Dei gratia_; men,
who it may be, kill—kill upon fields of parchment: kill dead, dead as
the sheep that carried the skin,—what then? all’s clean and clear,
not a drop of blood.”
“No. Oh, no; not a drop”—said Mrs. Jericho. Poor bewildered woman!
What could she say?
“Now, when I make myself the general of these two millions of golden
men, I send them out—some on one campaign—some on another. Some to do
service for young heirs, and eat ’em afterwards. Well, they return to
me. They come home, bringing prisoners; other golden captives. Every
soldier his one, or two, or three soldiers. Eh?”
“Yes, love; of course,” assented Mrs. Jericho.
“And therefore, madam,” cried Jericho with ferocity—“therefore, we
will have no more of this trumpery to waste upon others. No: I will
have the power—the power in my own hands. I will have my fighting
millions of good gold pieces; and—though we live in a hovel, and all
of us wear sackcloth, as we all shall”—
“To be sure, my dear,” said Mrs. Jericho, and—she could not help
it—she thought of a strait-waistcoat.
“Why, even then, when folks point at me, crawling about in outside
beggary—even then the world shall acknowledge me to be greater than
Cæsar, with all his legions.”
“Yes—yes—dear,” sighed Mrs. Jericho.
“Cæsar, with all his legions,” repeated the man possessed; and he
poised himself in his chair as upon a throne; and called into his
shadowy face, as he believed, an imperial look of money.