friend with you, I should advise you to combat this feeling of horror.
If you do not, it will unman you. After all, what can your uncle do to
you? He cannot rob you of your heart and soul. He cannot touch your
inner self.”
“You do not know,” he said.
“Ah but, Smith, I do know that. Whatever may be this quarrel between you
and him, you should not tremble at the thought of him; unless
indeed----”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you had done aught that should make you tremble before every
honest man.” I own I had begun to have my doubts of him, and to fear
that he had absolutely disgraced himself. Even in such case I,--I
individually,--did not wish to be severe on him; but I should be annoyed
to find that I had opened my heart to a swindler or a practised knave.
“I will tell you all to-morrow,” said he; “but I have been guilty of
nothing of that sort.”
In the evening he did come out, and sat with me as I smoked my cigar.
The boat, he was told, would almost undoubtedly come in by daybreak on
the following morning, and be off at nine; whereas it was very
improbable that any arrival from Jerusalem would be so early as that.
“Beside,” I reminded him, “your uncle will hardly hurry down to Jaffa,
because he will have no reason to think but what you have already
started. There are no telegraphs here, you know.”
In the evening he was still very sad, though the paroxysm of his terror
seemed to have passed away. I would not bother him, as he had himself
chosen the following morning for the telling of his story. So I sat and
smoked, and talked to him about our past journey, and by degrees the
power of speech came back to him, and I again felt that I loved him!
Yes, loved him! I have not taken many such fancies into my head, at so
short a notice; but I did love him, as though he were a younger brother.
I felt a delight in serving him, and though I was almost old enough to
be his father, I ministered to him as though he had been an old man, or
a woman.
On the following morning we were stirring at daybreak, and found that
the vessel was in sight. She would be in the roads off the town in two
hours’ time, they said, and would start at eleven or twelve. And then we
walked round by the gate of the town, and sauntered a quarter of a mile
or so along the way that leads towards Jerusalem. I could see that his
eye was anxiously turned down the road, but he said nothing. We saw no
cloud of dust, and then we returned to breakfast.
“The steamer has come to anchor,” said our dirty Polish host to us in
execrable English. “And we may be off on board,” said Smith. “Not yet,”
he said; “they must put their cargo out first.” I saw, however, that
Smith was uneasy, and I made up my mind to go off to the vessel at once.
When they should see an English portmanteau making an offer to come up
the gangway, the Austrian sailors would not stop it. So I called for the
bill, and ordered that the things should be taken down to the wretched
broken heap of rotten timber which they called a quay. Smith had not
told me his story, but no doubt he would as soon as he was on board.
I was in the act of squabbling with the Pole over the last demand for
piastres, when we heard a noise in the gateway of the inn, and I saw
Smith’s countenance become pale. It was an Englishman’s voice asking if
there were any strangers there; so I went into the courtyard, closing
the door behind me, and turning the key upon the landlord and Smith.
“Smith,” said I to myself, “will keep the Pole quiet if he have any wit
left.”
The man who had asked the question had the air of an upper English
servant, and I thought that I recognised one of those whom I had seen
with the old gentleman on the road; but the matter was soon put at rest
by the appearance of that gentleman himself. He walked up into the
courtyard, looked hard at me from under those bushy eyebrows, just
raised his hat, and then said, “I believe I am speaking to Mr. Jones.”
“Yes,” said I, “I am Mr. Jones. Can I have the honour of serving you?”
There was something peculiarly unpleasant about this man’s face. At the
present moment I examined it closely, and could understand the great
aversion which his nephew felt towards him. He looked like a gentleman
and like a man of talent, nor was there anything of meanness in his
face; neither was he ill-looking, in the usual acceptation of the word;
but one could see that he was solemn, austere, and overbearing; that he
would be incapable of any light enjoyment, and unforgiving towards all
offences. I took him to be a man who, being old himself, could never
remember that he had been young, and who, therefore, hated the levities
of youth. To me such a character is specially odious; for I would fain,
if it be possible, be young even to my grave. Smith, if he were clever,
might escape from the window of the room, which opened out upon a
terrace, and still get down to the steamer. I would keep the old man in
play for some time; and, even though I lost my passage, would be true to
my friend. There lay our joint luggage at my feet in the yard. If Smith
would venture away without his portion of it, all might yet be right.
“My name, sir, is Sir William Weston,” he began. I had heard of the name
before, and knew him to be a man of wealth, and family, and note. I took
off my hat, and said that I had much honour in meeting Sir William
Weston.
“And I presume you know the object with which I am now here,” he
continued.
“Not exactly,” said I. “Nor do I understand how I possibly should know
it, seeing that, up to this moment, I did not even know your name, and
have heard nothing concerning either your movements or your affairs.”
“Sir,” said he, “I have hitherto believed that I might at any rate
expect from you the truth.”
“Sir,” said I, “I am bold to think that you will not dare to tell me,
either now, or at any other time, that you have received, or expect to
receive, from me anything that is not true.”
He then stood still, looking at me for a moment or two, and I beg to
assert that I looked as fully at him. There was, at any rate, no cause
why I should tremble before him. I was not his nephew, nor was I
responsible for his nephew’s doings towards him. Two of his servants
were behind him, and on my side there stood a boy and girl belonging to
the inn. They, however, could not understand a word of English. I saw
that he was hesitating, but at last he spoke out. I confess, now, that
his words, when they were spoken, did, at the first moment, make me
tremble.
“I have to charge you,” said he, “with eloping with my niece, and I
demand of you to inform me where she is. You are perfectly aware that I
am her guardian by law.”
I did tremble;--not that I cared much for Sir William’s guardianship,
but I saw before me so terrible an embarrassment! And then I felt so
thoroughly abashed in that I had allowed myself to be so deceived! It
all came back upon me in a moment, and covered me with a shame that even
made me blush. I had travelled through the desert with a woman for
days, and had not discovered her, though she had given me a thousand
signs. All those signs I remembered now, and I blushed painfully. When
her hand was on my forehead I still thought that she was a man! I
declare that at this moment I felt a stronger disinclination to face my
late companion than I did to encounter her angry uncle.
“Your niece!” I said, speaking with a sheepish bewilderment which should
have convinced him at once of my innocence. She had asked me, too,
whether I was a married man, and I had denied it. How was I to escape
from such a mess of misfortunes? I declare that I began to forget her
troubles in my own.
“Yes, my niece,--Miss Julia Weston. The disgrace which you have brought
upon me must be wiped out; but my first duty is to save that unfortunate
young woman from further misery.”
“If it be as you say,” I exclaimed, “by the honour of a gentleman----”
“I care nothing for the honour of a gentleman till I see it proved. Be
good enough to inform me, sir, whether Miss Weston is in this house.”
For a moment I hesitated; but I saw at once that I should make myself
responsible for certain mischief, of which I was at any rate hitherto in
truth innocent, if I allowed myself to become a party to concealing a
young lady. Up to this period I could at any rate defend myself, whether
my defence were believed or not believed. I still had a hope that the
charming Julia might have escaped through the window, and a feeling that
if she had done so I was not responsible. When I turned the lock I
turned it on Smith.
For a moment I hesitated, and then walked slowly across the yard and
opened the door. “Sir William,” I said, as I did so, “I travelled here
with a companion dressed as a man; and I believed him to be what he
seemed till this minute.”
“Sir!” said Sir William, with a look of scorn in his face which gave me
the lie in my teeth as plainly as any words could do. And then he
entered the room. The Pole was standing in one corner, apparently amazed
at what was going on, and Smith,--I may as well call her Miss Weston at
once, for the baronet’s statement was true,--was sitting on a sort of
divan in the corner of the chamber hiding her face in her hands. She had
made no attempt at an escape, and a full explanation was therefore
indispensable. For myself I own that I felt ashamed of my part in the
play,--ashamed even of my own innocency. Had I been less innocent I
should certainly have contrived to appear much less guilty. Had it
occurred to me on the banks of the Jordan that Smith was a lady, I
should not have travelled with her in her gentleman’s habiliments from
Jerusalem to Jaffa. Had she consented to remain under my protection, she
must have done so without a masquerade.
The uncle stood still and looked at his niece. He probably understood
how thoroughly stern and disagreeable was his own face, and considered
that he could punish the crime of his relative in no severer way than by
looking at her. In this I think he was right. But at last there was a
necessity for speaking. “Unfortunate young woman!” he said, and then
paused.
“We had better get rid of the landlord,” I said, “before we come to any
explanation.” And I motioned to the man to leave the room. This he did
very unwillingly, but at last he was gone.
“I fear that it is needless to care on her account who may hear the
story of her shame,” said Sir William. I looked at Miss Weston, but she
still sat hiding her face. However, if she did not defend herself, it
was necessary that I should defend both her and me.
“I do not know how far I may be at liberty to speak with reference to
the private matters of yourself or of your--your niece, Sir William
Weston. I would not willingly interfere----”
“Sir,” said he, “your interference has already taken place. Will you
have the goodness to explain to me what are your intentions with regard
to that lady?”
My intentions! Heaven help me! My intentions, of course, were to leave
her in her uncle’s hands. Indeed, I could hardly be said to have formed
any intention since I had learned that I had been honoured by a lady’s
presence. At this moment I deeply regretted that I had thoughtlessly
stated to her that I was an unmarried man. In doing so I had had no
object. But at that time “Smith” had been quite a stranger to me, and I
had not thought it necessary to declare my own private concerns. Since
that I had talked so little of myself that the fact of my family at home
had not been mentioned. “Will you have the goodness to explain what are
your intentions with regard to that lady?” said the baronet.
“Oh, Uncle William!” exclaimed Miss Weston, now at length raising her
head from her hands.
“Hold your peace, madam,” said he. “When called upon to speak, you will
find your words with difficulty enough. Sir, I am waiting for an answer
from you.”
“But, uncle, he is nothing to me;--the gentleman is nothing to me!”
“By the heavens above us, he shall be something, or I will know the
reason why! What! he has gone off with you; he has travelled through the
country with you, hiding you from your only natural friend; he has been
your companion for weeks----”
“Six days, sir,” said I.
“Sir!” said the baronet, again giving me the lie. “And now,” he
continued, addressing his niece, “you tell me that he is nothing to you.
He shall give me his promise that he will make you his wife at the
consulate at Alexandria, or I will destroy him. I know who he is.”
“If you know who I am,” said I, “you must know----”
But he would not listen to me. “And as for you, madam, unless he makes
me that promise----” And then he paused in his threat, and, turning
round, looked me in the face. I saw that she also was looking at me,
though not openly as he did; and some flattering devil that was at work
round my heart, would have persuaded that she also would have heard a
certain answer given without dismay,--would even have received comfort
in her agony from such an answer. But the reader knows how completely
that answer was out of my power.
“I have not the slightest ground for supposing,” said I, “that the lady
would accede to such an arrangement,--if it were possible. My
acquaintance with her has been altogether confined to----. To tell the
truth, I have not been in Miss Weston’s confidence, and have only taken
her for that which she has seemed to be.”
“Sir!” said the baronet, again looking at me as though he would wither
me on the spot for my falsehood.
“It is true!” said Julia, getting up from her seat, and appealing with
clasped hands to her uncle--“as true as Heaven.”
“Madam!” said he, “do you both take me for a fool?”
“That you should take me for one,” said I, “would be very natural. The
facts are as we state to you. Miss Weston,--as I now learn that she
is,--did me the honour of calling at my hotel, having heard----” And
then it seemed to me as though I were attempting to screen myself by
telling the story against her, so I was again silent. Never in my life
had I been in a position of such extraordinary difficulty. The duty
which I owed to Julia as a woman, and to Sir William as a guardian, and
to myself as the father of a family, all clashed with each other. I was
anxious to be generous, honest, and prudent, but it was impossible; so I
made up my mind to say nothing further.
“Mr. Jones,” said the baronet, “I have explained to you the only
arrangement which under the present circumstances I can permit to pass
without open exposure and condign punishment. That you are a gentleman
by birth, education, and position I am aware,”--whereupon I raised my
hat, and then he continued: “That lady has three hundred a year of her
own----”
“And attractions, personal and mental, which are worth ten times the
money,” said I, and I bowed to my fair friend, who looked at me the
while with sad beseeching eyes. I confess that the mistress of my bosom,
had she known my thoughts at that one moment, might have had cause for
anger.
“Very well,” continued he. “Then the proposal which I name, cannot, I
imagine, but be satisfactory. If you will make to her and to me the only
amends which it is in your power as a gentleman to afford, I will
forgive all. Tell me that you will make her your wife on your arrival in
Egypt.”
I would have given anything not to have looked at Miss Weston at this
moment, but I could not help it. I did turn my face half round to her
before I answered, and then felt that I had been cruel in doing so. “Sir
William,” said I, “I have at home already a wife and family of my own.”
“It is not true!” said he, retreating a step, and staring at me with
amazement.
“There is something, sir,” I replied, “in the unprecedented
circumstances of this meeting, and in your position with regard to that
lady, which, joined to your advanced age, will enable me to regard that
useless insult as unspoken. I am a married man. There is the signature
of my wife’s last letter,” and I handed him one which I had received as
I was leaving Jerusalem.
But the coarse violent contradiction which Sir William had given me was
nothing compared with the reproach conveyed in Miss Weston’s
countenance. She looked at me as though all her anger were now turned
against me. And yet, methought, there was more of sorrow than of
resentment in her countenance. But what cause was there for either? Why
should I be reproached, even by her look? She did not remember at the
moment that when I answered her chance question as to my domestic
affairs, I had answered it as to a man who was a stranger to me, and not
as to a beautiful woman, with whom I was about to pass certain days in
close and intimate society. To her, at the moment, it seemed as though I
had cruelly deceived her. In truth, the one person really deceived had
been myself.
And here I must explain, on behalf of the lady, that when she first
joined me she had no other view than that of seeing the banks of the
Jordan in that guise which she had chosen to assume, in order to escape
from the solemnity and austerity of a disagreeable relative. She had
been very foolish, and that was all. I take it that she had first left
her uncle at Constantinople, but on this point I never got certain
information. Afterwards, while we were travelling together, the idea had
come upon her, that she might go on as far as Alexandria with me. And
then----. I know nothing further of the lady’s intentions, but I am
certain that her wishes were good and pure. Her uncle had been
intolerable to her, and she had fled from him. Such had been her
offence, and no more.
“Then, sir,” said the baronet, giving me back my letter, “you must be a
double-dyed villain.”
“And you, sir,” said I---- But here Julia Weston interrupted me.
“Uncle, you altogether wrong this gentleman,” she said. “He has been
kind to me beyond my power of words to express; but, till told by you,
he knew nothing of my secret. Nor would he have known it,” she added,
looking down upon the ground. As to that latter assertion, I was at
liberty to believe as much as I pleased.
The Pole now came to the door, informing us that any who wished to start
by the packet must go on board, and therefore, as the unreasonable old
gentleman perceived, it was necessary that we should all make our
arrangements. I cannot say that they were such as enable me to look back
on them with satisfaction. He did seem now at last to believe that I had
been an unconscious agent in his niece’s stratagem, but he hardly on
that account became civil to me. “It was absolutely necessary,” he said,
“that he and that unfortunate young woman,” as he would call her,
“should depart at once,--by this ship now going.” To this proposition of
course I made no opposition. “And you, Mr. Jones,” he continued, “will
at once perceive that you, as a gentleman, should allow us to proceed on
our journey without the honour of your company.”
This was very dreadful, but what could I say; or, indeed, what could I
do? My most earnest desire in the matter was to save Miss Weston from
annoyance; and under existing circumstances my presence on board could
not but be a burden to her. And then, if I went,--if I did go, in
opposition to the wishes of the baronet, could I trust my own prudence?
It was better for all parties that I should remain.
“Sir William,” said I, after a minute’s consideration, “if you will
apologise to me for the gross insults you have offered me, it shall be
as you say.”
“Mr. Jones,” said Sir William, “I do apologise for the words which I
used to you while I was labouring under a very natural misconception of
the circumstances.” I do not know that I was much the better for the
apology, but at the moment I regarded it sufficient.
Their things were then hurried down to the strand, and I accompanied
them to the ruined quay. I took off my hat to Sir William as he was
first let down into the boat. He descended first, so that he might
receive his niece,--for all Jaffa now knew that it was a lady,--and then
I gave her my hand for the last time. “God bless you, Miss Weston,” I
said, pressing it closely. “God bless you, Mr. Jones,” she replied. And
from that day to this I have neither spoken to her nor seen her.
I waited a fortnight at Jaffa for the French boat, eating cutlets of
goat’s flesh, and wandering among the orange groves. I certainly look
back on that fortnight as the most miserable period of my life. I had
been deceived, and had failed to discover the deceit, even though the
deceiver had perhaps wished that I should do so. For that blindness I
have never forgiven myself.
THE HOUSE OF HEINE BROTHERS, IN MUNICH.
The house of Heine Brothers, in Munich, was of good repute at the time
of which I am about to tell,--a time not long ago; and is so still, I
trust. It was of good repute in its own way, seeing that no man doubted
the word or solvency of Heine Brothers; but they did not possess, as
bankers, what would in England be considered a large or profitable
business. The operations of English bankers are bewildering in their
magnitude. Legions of clerks are employed. The senior book-keepers,
though only salaried servants, are themselves great men; while the real
partners are inscrutable, mysterious, opulent beyond measure, and
altogether unknown to their customers. Take any firm at random,--Brown,
Jones, and Cox, let us say,--the probability is that Jones has been dead
these fifty years, that Brown is a Cabinet Minister, and that Cox is
master of a pack of hounds in Leicestershire. But it was by no means so
with the house of Heine Brothers, of Munich. There they were, the two
elderly men, daily to be seen at their dingy office in the Schrannen
Platz; and if any business was to be transacted requiring the
interchange of more than a word or two, it was the younger brother with
whom the customer was, as a matter of course, brought into contact.
There were three clerks in the establishment; an old man, namely, who
sat with the elder brother and had no personal dealings with the public;
a young Englishman, of whom we shall anon hear more; and a boy who ran
messages, put the wood on to the stoves, and swept out the bank. Truly
the house of Heine Brothers was of no great importance; but nevertheless
it was of good repute.
The office, I have said, was in the Schrannen Platz, or old
Market-place. Munich, as every one knows, is chiefly to be noted as a
new town,--so new that many of the streets and most of the palaces look
as though they had been sent home last night from the builders, and had
only just been taken out of their bandboxes. It is angular, methodical,
unfinished, and palatial. But there is an old town; and, though the old
town be not of surpassing interest, it is as dingy, crooked, intricate,
and dark as other old towns in Germany. Here, in the old Market-place,
up one long broad staircase, were situated the two rooms in which was
held the bank of Heine Brothers.
Of the elder member of the firm we shall have something to say before
this story be completed. He was an old bachelor, and was possessed of a
bachelor’s dwelling somewhere out in the suburbs of the city. The junior
brother was a married man, with a wife some twenty years younger than
himself, with two daughters, the elder of whom was now one-and-twenty,
and one son. His name was Ernest Heine, whereas the senior brother was
known as Uncle Hatto. Ernest Heine and his wife inhabited a portion of
one of those new palatial residences at the further end of the Ludwigs
Strasse; but not because they thus lived must it be considered that they
were palatial people. By no means let it be so thought, as such an idea
would altogether militate against whatever truth of character painting
there may be in this tale. They were not palatial people, but the very
reverse, living in homely guise, pursuing homely duties, and satisfied
with homely pleasures. Up two pairs of stairs, however, in that street
of palaces, they lived, having there a commodious suite of large rooms,
furnished, after the manner of the Germans, somewhat gaudily as regarded
their best salon, and with somewhat meagre comfort as regarded their
other rooms. But, whether in respect of that which was meagre, or
whether in respect of that which was gaudy, they were as well off as
their neighbours; and this, as I take it, is the point of excellence
which is desirable.