CRUEL KINDNESS.
While Violet began her lowly career at the Circenses, Lionel made a
new effort to earn a few pounds. His powers as an artist were of no
mean order, and he made a desperate attempt to turn his talents to
some account. He gathered together a little bundle of sketches, some
in water-colours, some in pen-and-ink, but all of them exhibiting
considerable dash and talent: sporting sketches, military sketches,
graceful groups _à la_ Watteau, cavaliers in the ever-picturesque
costume of the Restoration, all the work of happy hours at the
Grange. With this bundle under his arm, Lionel Westford sallied
forth one wet afternoon in quest of some enterprising dealer in art.
Never had the streets of London looked duller or dingier than they
did to-day. There were few carriages even in the best thoroughfares,
and the muddy foot-passengers who trod wearily upon the sloppy
pavement seemed all of them more or less at odds with fortune.
Lionel Westford crossed Waterloo Bridge and made his way by different
short cuts to Regent-street.
Here, as well as in the meaner quarters of the town, the
foot-passengers might suffer all the inconvenience and discomfort of
muddy pavements and perpetual rain; but pampered beauty, rolling here
and there in her luxurious carriage, could descend therefrom to be
sheltered by the huge umbrella held by a deferential footman, and to
be escorted into a shop as elegantly and as comfortably furnished as
a West-end drawing-room.
Lionel entered the shop of a fashionable printseller. It was
comparatively empty, and he was able to make his way at once to
the counter, where the principal was busily occupied sorting some
engravings in a portfolio.
Three or four fashionable-looking men were lounging near the door,
and glanced with supreme indifference at the shabbily-dressed
stranger, whose threadbare coat and shining hat, dripping with rain,
too palpably betrayed his poverty.
Lionel Westford approached the counter, and after a few preliminary
words, opened his portfolio.
The printseller looked at the sketches readily enough. They were very
clever, he said; they gave indications of great talent, but unluckily
they were not wanted; there were plenty of such things to be had,
done by the regular people.
Lionel Westford’s cheek grew paler as he saw his last hope deserting
him.
“Can you not give me some kind of employment?” he asked, with a
feverish energy. “You think, perhaps, I shall want high prices for
what I do. You are mistaken. I will work for starvation wages, and
work untiringly--I only ask you to give me a chance.”
The printseller shook his head decisively.
“Quite impossible,” he said. “I have more of these kind of things in
my stock than I shall be able to sell in a twelvemonth. Photography
has quite superseded this kind of work. The fashion for scrap-books
has gone out.”
“But if I were to paint a more important picture----”
“There would be no market for it, my good young man. You must have
some kind of reputation as an artist before you can expect your
pictures to sell,” answered the shopkeeper impatiently.
Lionel shut his portfolio, and turned away from the counter with a
feeling of heart-sickness in his breast. None, save those who have
endured such disappointments, can tell their anguish.
His face was deadly pale; his lips contracted rigidly; and there was
an angry look in his eyes. He was in the humour which would have sent
a Frenchman on the first stage of that fatal journey which halts at
the _filets de St. Cloud_, to make its dismal end in the darksome
cells of the Morgue.
As he turned from the counter he found himself face to face with a
woman--a woman whose beauty startled him by its splendour.
Never before had he seen a face that seemed to him so wondrous in
its magical charm. It was not an English type of beauty. The large,
almond-shaped eyes, darkly lustrous yet soft and dewy even in their
lustre, were like the eyes of a Madonna by Correggio. The rich
complexion was foreign in its clear olive tint. The hair, simply
dressed under a pink crape bonnet, was of that bluish-black which a
painter would choose for the massy tresses of an Assyrian queen.
This Spanish-looking divinity was dressed in the height of fashion
and the perfection of taste, as it seemed to Lionel Westford, whose
artistic eye took in every detail of her appearance, even in that
dreary crisis of his fate. His own troubles and perplexities vanished
out of his mind as he looked at this unknown beauty, and he was
wholly absorbed by the painter’s delight in loveliness of form and
colour.
The young lady wore a dress of some silken material, in which violet
and silvery grey were artfully intermingled. A priceless cashmere
shawl draped her perfect figure, lending itself to those diagonal
lines which are agreeable to the painter’s eye. Close behind this
brilliant demoiselle appeared a stout but very stately matron
of the chaperone class--the kind of person created for domestic
surveillance--the modern form under which the dragon of the famous
garden guards the unapproachable fruit.
Lionel Westford was scarcely conscious of this latter lady’s
presence. It was the young beauty whose sudden appearance bewildered
him, as he turned away, despairing, from the printseller’s counter.
He gazed for some moments upon the unknown beauty, dazzled by her
splendour, and then passed hastily on. He wanted to leave the
shop--he felt eager to withdraw himself from the influence of that
beauteous face. It seemed to him as if there was something almost
stifling in the atmosphere. What had he to do with such a creature
as this pampered and doubtless high-bred beauty?--he, a beggar, an
outcast, a kind of Pariah, by reason of his poverty?
He would have passed out of the shop; but, to his utter
bewilderment, the fashionable beauty followed him towards the door,
after a brief whispered disputation with the elder lady, and laid
her little gloved hand upon the damp sleeve of his shabby coat. The
gesture was only momentary. The slim fingers touched him as lightly
as a butterfly’s wing; and yet a kind of thrill seemed to vibrate
through his veins.
“Do not go just yet,” pleaded a low earnest voice; “I should be glad
to speak with you for a few minutes.”
“I am quite at your service, madam.”
At her service! How cold and formal the words sounded as he uttered
them! What was she to him but a stranger, whose face had shone upon
him for the first time only five minutes ago? And yet he felt as if
he could have surrendered his life to give her pleasure. He stood
with his hat in his hand, waiting until she should address him.
If he was embarrassed, she was still more so. The rich crimson
blood rushed to her cheeks--the dark fringes drooped over her eyes.
And yet the impulse that stirred her heart was only one of womanly
compassion; it was pity alone that had impelled her to address Lionel
Westford.
She had overheard his appeal to the shopkeeper. She had perceived
from his tone and manner that he was a gentleman, unaccustomed to
bitter struggles for daily bread. She had seen his white face, almost
ghastly in its look of despair; and, with impulsive generosity, she
had determined, if possible, to help him.
“You are very much in need of employment?” she said hesitatingly.
“My dearest Julia,” exclaimed the outraged matron, “this is really
such a very unprecedented kind of proceeding, I must protest against
such inconsiderate conduct.”
“My dear Mrs. Melville, for once in a way don’t protest against
anything: I am only going to speak to this gentleman about a matter
of business,” returned the young lady, just a little impatiently.
“But, my dear Julia, your papa----”
“Papa always allows me to have my own way.”
“But, my dear love, this per--this--ahem!--gentleman is an utter
stranger to you.”
All this was spoken in an undertone, but Lionel could perceive that
the language of remonstrance was being addressed to the young lady by
an outraged duenna, and he moved again towards the door, anxious to
terminate an embarrassing situation.
The young lady’s generous impulses were not to be subjugated by
matronly caution.
She stopped Lionel once more as he was about to leave the shop.
“Pray do not hesitate to answer me,” she said. “I heard you say just
now that you needed employment.”
“I only said the truth, madam. I need it very much.”
“And would you be particular as to the nature of the employment, so
long as it were tolerably remunerative?”
“Particular, madam!” exclaimed Lionel. “I would sweep a crossing in
the muddy street yonder, or hold horses at the doors of the clubs. I
would do anything that an honest man may do, in order to get bread
for those I love.”
“For those you love!” repeated the lady. “You have a young wife,
perhaps--or even children--whom you find it difficult to support?”
“O no, madam! I have no wife to reproach me for my poverty. The dear
ones of whom I spoke are my mother and sister.”
“I think I could offer you remunerative employment,” said the Spanish
beauty, still in the same hesitating manner, “if the nature of it
would not be unpleasant to you.”
“Unpleasant to me, madam!” exclaimed Lionel. “Believe me, there is no
fear of that. Pray speak--command me, in any way you please.”
“I have an only brother,” answered the lady, “who possesses the
same talent as yourself. He is abroad now; and indeed we have been
separated for some time; but we are truly attached to each other, and
everything relating to him is sacred in my eyes. When he went away
from home he left behind him a great quantity of sketches--things
to which he attached no value, but which are very precious to me. I
am anxious to get these drawings mounted by some one with artistic
taste. I should be very glad if you would undertake the task. Our
house in the country is a very large one; and I have no doubt papa
would give you rooms in it while you were engaged in carrying out my
wishes. I will ask him to write to you on the subject, if you like.
In the mean time, here is my card.”
She opened an exquisitely carved ivory case, and handed Lionel a
card, while the outraged matron looked on in silence, with an air of
wounded dignity that approached the tragic.
Her tone and manner throughout, even when she was most hesitating,
seemed those of one accustomed to command. There was an imperious
grandeur in her beauty, which contrasted strongly with her maidenly
shyness in addressing a stranger.
The name which Lionel Westford read upon the card was
MISS GODWIN,
_Wilmingdon Hall, Herts._
Miss Godwin of Wilmingdon Hall! Lionel Westford started, and recoiled
a little from his lovely companion.
“I dare say you know my father’s name,” she said; “almost everybody
knows Mr. Godwin the banker.”
“I don’t know what people would say if they knew Mr. Godwin’s
daughter went about the world picking up strange young men in shops,”
thought the matron.
Lionel faltered some few words in reply to Miss Godwin, but those
words were not intelligible.
Rupert Godwin’s daughter! This girl, who was anxious to be his
patroness, his benefactress, was no other than the daughter of Rupert
Godwin, his mother’s worst enemy!
Could he accept any favour from that man’s race? And, on the other
hand, how could he now refuse this girl’s help, so generously
offered, so eagerly accepted, a few moments before?
He was silent. He stood with the card in his hand, staring absently
at the name inscribed upon it, while a sharp mental struggle went on
within his breast.
What was he to do? Was he, who so needed help, to reject this most
unexpected succour, this friendly rope flung out to him at the moment
when he was buffeting with waves that threatened his annihilation?
Was he to refuse the help offered in this crisis of his life, in
deference to a feeling which was, perhaps, after all, only a foolish
prejudice?
He thought of his mother’s broken home. He believed that Rupert
Godwin had only acted as any other hard-headed, callous-hearted man
of business might have done. But the memory of that desolate home was
very vivid in his mind, and he had long ago learned to look upon the
banker as a bitter enemy.
Yet he _could not_ reject Julia Godwin’s offer of assistance. The
images of his mother and sister seemed to fade from his mind. He
stood before Julia Godwin bewildered by conflicting emotions,
helpless as some creature under the influence of a spell.
“Shall I ask Papa to write to you about terms and other arrangements?
Will you consent to mount my brother’s sketches?” asked the soft
voice, while the chaperone still looked on with the stony stare of
amazement.
“Yes, I am at your service. I will do what you please,” answered
Lionel.
“You are very good. And to what address shall papa write?”
The young man paused for a moment, and then named a post-office in a
street near his lodging.
Julia Godwin wrote the address on the back of one of her cards
with the jewelled pencil dangling amongst the costly toys at her
watch-chain.
“And the name?” she asked.
“Lewis Wilton,” Lionel answered, after another brief pause.
He could only enter Rupert Godwin’s house under a false name.
Henceforward his independence would be gone, for there would be
falsehood and dishonour in his life.
He felt this; and a sense of shame mingled with his delight in the
thought that he and Julia Godwin would meet again.
“And now I am quite at your service, dear Mrs. Melville,” she said
to her duenna, placidly ignoring the tempest of indignation with
which the matron’s breast had been swelling. “Yet stay, I had almost
forgotten to make my purchases.”
She went to the counter, and bought some trifling articles, while
Lionel waited to escort the two ladies to their carriage.
It was a very magnificent equipage; and the young man thought, as
Julia Godwin bowed to him from the window, that she looked like some
foreign princess, dazzling alike by her beauty and by the splendour
of her surroundings.
He little knew that the infamous theft of his father’s hardly-earned
fortune had alone preserved that splendid equipage from the hands of
infuriated creditors. He little knew that all his own sufferings were
occasioned by the diabolical fraud which had enabled Rupert Godwin to
stem the tide in his affairs, and float into new enterprises that had
brought him the command of money.
Yes; the twenty thousand pounds had saved the banker’s commercial
position, and had enabled him to enter upon new speculations, which
had been singularly, almost miraculously, fortunate.
Lucifer sometimes favours his children. Harley Westford’s money had
been very _lucky_ to Rupert Godwin.
And yet, hard and resolute as the banker’s nature was, there were
times when he would have gladly sacrificed all his position in the
commercial world if he could have recalled the day upon which he
first saw the captain of the _Lily Queen_.
Lionel stood on the muddy pavement, lingering until Godwin’s carriage
was quite out of sight.
Then he turned slowly away, and walked homeward; heedless of the
fast-falling rain--almost unconscious of the way by which he went;
entirely absorbed in thoughts of the lovely face that had so lately
beamed upon him--the low musical voice which seemed still to sound in
his ear.
But, think as he would of the beautiful Julia, he could not quite
banish from his mind the memory of his mother’s trials. What would
she think of her only son, could she but know that he was about to
accept service with the man who had rendered her home desolate, the
man of whom she never spoke without a shudder of aversion?
“There is something horribly base in this business,” thought the
young man. “False to Rupert Godwin, since I enter his house as a
concealed enemy; false to my mother, whose natural hatred of this
man I must outrage by any dealings with him or his race. False every
way! What can I do but despise myself for my meanness and folly?
No!--come what may, I will not be so utterly weak and degraded. I
will not enter the house of Rupert Godwin!”
But there is a Nemesis who guides the footsteps of the avenger. It
was destined that Lionel Westford should enter Rupert Godwin’s house
under a false name.
The hand of fatality pointed to Wilmingdon Hall. Harley Westford’s
son was to go thither.
Chance seemed to have brought about that which was to be the first
step in a long train of circumstances leading, slowly but surely,
towards discovery and retribution.
* * * * *
Two days after his interview with Julia Godwin, Lionel called at the
post-office, and received a letter from the banker.
It was brief, but not uncourteous:
“SIR,--In accordance with my daughter’s request and recommendation, I
am prepared to employ you for some weeks in the cleaning and mounting
of my son’s sketches. The salary I can offer you is five guineas a
week; and you can be accommodated with rooms at my house.
“I shall naturally expect a reference to some person of position who
can testify to the respectability of your character and antecedents.
“Yours obediently,
“RUPERT GODWIN.
“_Wilmingdon Hall, Herts_.”