DOODLES IN MOUNT STREET.
Captain Clavering and Captain Boodle had, as may be imagined,
discussed at great length and with much frequency the results of the
former captain's negotiations with the Russian spy, and it had been
declared strongly by the latter captain, and ultimately admitted by
the former, that those results were not satisfactory. Seventy pounds
had been expended, and, so to say, nothing had been accomplished.
It was in vain that Archie, unwilling to have it thought that he
had been worsted in diplomacy, argued that with these political
personages, and especially with Russian political personages, the
ambages were everything,--that the preliminaries were in fact the
whole, and that when they were arranged, the thing was done. Doodles
proved to demonstration that the thing was not done, and that seventy
pounds was too much for mere preliminaries. "My dear fellow," he
said, speaking I fear with some scorn in his voice, "where are you?
That's what I want to know. Where are you? Just nowhere." This was
true. All that Archie had received from Madame Gordeloup in return
for his last payment, was an intimation that no immediate day could
be at present named for a renewal of his personal attack upon the
countess; but that a day might be named when he should next come to
Mount Street,--provision, of course, being made that he should come
with a due qualification under his glove. Now the original basis
on which Archie was to carry on his suit had been arranged to be
this,--that Lady Ongar should be made to know that he was there; and
the way in which Doodles had illustrated this precept by the artistic
and allegorical use of his heel was still fresh in Archie's memory.
The meeting in which they had come to that satisfactory understanding
had taken place early in the spring, and now June was coming on, and
the countess certainly did not as yet know that her suitor was there!
If anything was to be done by the Russian spy it should be done
quickly, and Doodles did not refrain from expressing his opinion that
his friend was "putting his foot into it," and "making a mull of the
whole thing." Now Archie Clavering was a man not eaten up by the vice
of self-confidence, but prone rather to lean upon his friends and
anxious for the aid of counsel in difficulty.
"What the devil is a fellow to do?" he asked. "Perhaps I had better
give it all up. Everybody says that she is as proud as Lucifer; and,
after all, nobody knows what rigs she has been up to."
But this was by no means the view which Doodles was inclined to take.
He was a man who in the field never gave up a race because he was
thrown out at the start, having perceived that patience would achieve
as much, perhaps, as impetuosity. He had ridden many a waiting
race, and had won some of them. He was never so sure of his hand at
billiards as when the score was strong against him. "Always fight
whilst there's any fight left in you," was a maxim with him. He never
surrendered a bet as lost, till the evidence as to the facts was
quite conclusive, and had taught himself to regard any chance, be it
ever so remote, as a kind of property.
"Never say die," was his answer to Archie's remark. "You see, Clavvy,
you have still a few good cards, and you can never know what a woman
really means till you have popped yourself. As to what she did when
she was away, and all that, you see when a woman has got seven
thousand a year in her own right, it covers a multitude of sins."
"Of course, I know that."
"And why should a fellow be uncharitable? If a man is to believe all
that he hears, by George, they're all much of a muchness. For my part
I never believe anything. I always suppose every horse will run to
win; and though there may be a cross now and again, that's the surest
line to go upon. D'you understand me now?" Archie said that of course
he understood him; but I fancy that Doodles had gone a little too
deep for Archie's intellect.
"I should say, drop this woman, and go at the widow yourself at
once."
"And lose all my seventy pounds for nothing!"
"You're not soft enough to suppose that you'll ever get it back
again, I hope?" Archie assured his friend that he was not soft enough
for any such hope as that, and then the two remained silent for a
while, deeply considering the posture of the affair. "I'll tell you
what I'll do for you," said Doodles; "and upon my word I think it
will be the best thing."
"And what's that?"
"I'll go to this woman myself."
"What; to Lady Ongar?"
"No; but to the Spy, as you call her. Principals are never the best
for this kind of work. When a man has to pay the money himself he can
never make so good a bargain as another can make for him. That stands
to reason. And I can be blunter with her about it than you can;--can
go straight at it, you know; and you may be sure of this, she won't
get any money from me, unless I get the marbles for it."
"You'll take some with you, then?"
"Well, yes; that is, if it's convenient. We were talking of going two
or three hundred pounds, you know, and you've only gone seventy as
yet. Suppose you hand me over the odd thirty. If she gets it out of
me easy, tell me my name isn't Boodle."
There was much in this that was distasteful to Captain Clavering,
but at last he submitted, and handed over the thirty pounds to his
friend. Then there was considerable doubt whether the ambassador
should announce himself by a note, but it was decided at last that
his arrival should not be expected. If he did not find the lady at
home or disengaged on the first visit, or on the second, he might on
the third or the fourth. He was a persistent, patient little man,
and assured his friend that he would certainly see Madame Gordeloup
before a week had passed over their heads.
On the occasion of his first visit to Mount Street, Sophie Gordeloup
was enjoying her retreat in the Isle of Wight. When he called the
second time she was in bed, the fatigue of her journey on the
previous day,--the day on which she had actually risen at seven
o'clock in the morning,--having oppressed her much. She had returned
in the cab alone, and had occupied herself much on the same evening.
Now that she was to be parted from her Julie, it was needful that she
should be occupied. She wrote a long letter to her brother,--much
more confidential than her letters to him had lately been,--telling
him how much she had suffered on his behalf, and describing to
him with great energy the perverseness, malignity, and general
pigheadedness of her late friend. Then she wrote an anonymous letter
to Mrs. Burton, whose name and address she had learned, after having
ascertained from Archie the fact of Harry Clavering's engagement. In
this letter she described the wretched wiles by which that horrid
woman Lady Ongar was struggling to keep Harry and Miss Burton apart.
"It is very bad, but it is true," said the diligent little woman.
"She has been seen in his embrace; I know it." After that she dressed
and went out into society,--the society of which she had boasted as
being open to her,--to the house of some hanger-on of some embassy,
and listened, and whispered, and laughed when some old sinner joked
with her, and talked poetry to a young man who was foolish and lame,
but who had some money, and got a glass of wine and a cake for
nothing, and so was very busy; and on her return home calculated that
her cab-hire for the evening had been judiciously spent. But her
diligence had been so great that when Captain Boodle called the next
morning at twelve o'clock she was still in bed. Had she been in dear
Paris, or in dearer Vienna, that would have not hindered her from
receiving the visit; but in pigheaded London this could not be done;
and, therefore, when she had duly scrutinized Captain Boodle's card,
and had learned from the servant that Captain Boodle desired to see
herself on very particular business, she made an appointment with him
for the following day.
On the following day at the same hour Doodles came and was shown up
into her room. He had scrupulously avoided any smartness of apparel,
calculating that a Newmarket costume would be, of all dresses, the
most efficacious in filling her with an idea of his smartness;
whereas Archie had probably injured himself much by his polished
leather boots, and general newness of clothing. Doodles, therefore,
wore a cut-away coat, a coloured shirt with a fogle round his neck,
old brown trowsers that fitted very tightly round his legs, and was
careful to take no gloves with him. He was a man with a small bullet
head, who wore his hair cut very short, and had no other beard than
a slight appendage on his lower chin. He certainly did possess a
considerable look of smartness, and when he would knit his brows and
nod his head, some men were apt to think that it was not easy to get
on the soft side of him.
Sophie on this occasion was not arrayed with that becoming negligence
which had graced her appearance when Captain Clavering had called.
She knew that a visitor was coming, and the questionably white
wrapper had been exchanged for an ordinary dress. This was regretted,
rather than otherwise, by Captain Boodle, who had received from
Archie a description of the lady's appearance, and who had been
anxious to see the Spy in her proper and peculiar habiliments. It
must be remembered that Sophie knew nothing of her present visitor,
and was altogether unaware that he was in any way connected with
Captain Clavering.
"You are Captain Boddle," she said, looking hard at Doodles, as he
bowed to her on entering the room.
"Captain Boodle, ma'am; at your service."
"Oh, Captain Bood-dle; it is English name, I suppose?"
"Certainly, ma'am, certainly. Altogether English, I believe.
Our Boodles come out of Warwickshire; small property near
Leamington,--doosed small, I'm sorry to say."
She looked at him very hard, and was altogether unable to discover
what was the nature or probable mode of life of the young man before
her. She had lived much in England, and had known Englishmen of
many classes, but she could not remember that she had ever become
conversant with such a one as he who was now before her. Was he a
gentleman, or might he be a housebreaker? "A doosed small property
near Leamington," she said, repeating the words after him. "Oh!"
"But my visit to you, ma'am, has nothing to do with that."
"Nothing to do with the small property."
"Nothing in life."
"Then, Captain Bood-dle, what may it have to do with?"
Hereupon Doodles took a chair, not having been invited to go through
that ceremony. According to the theory created in her mind at the
instant, this man was not at all like an English captain. Captain
is an unfortunate title, somewhat equivalent to the foreign
count,--unfortunate in this respect, that it is easily adopted by
many whose claims to it are very slight. Archie Clavering, with his
polished leather boots, had looked like a captain,--had come up to
her idea of a captain,--but this man! The more she regarded him, the
stronger in her mind became the idea of the housebreaker.
"My business, ma'am, is of a very delicate nature,--of a nature very
delicate indeed. But I think that you and I, who understand the
world, may soon come to understand each other."
"Oh, you understand the world. Very well, sir. Go on."
"Now, ma'am, money is money, you know."
"And a goose is a goose; but what of that?"
"Yes; a goose is a goose, and some people are not geese. Nobody,
ma'am, would think of calling you a goose."
"I hope not. It would be so uncivil, even an Englishman would not say
it. Will you go on?"
"I think you have the pleasure of knowing Lady Ongar?"
"Knowing who?" said Sophie, almost shrieking.
"Lady Ongar."
During the last day or two Sophie's mind had been concerned very
much with her dear Julie, but had not been concerned at all with
the affairs of Captain Clavering, and, therefore, when Lady Ongar's
name was mentioned, her mind went away altogether to the quarrel, and
did not once refer itself to the captain. Could it be that this was
an attorney, and was it possible that Julie would be mean enough to
make claims upon her? Claims might be made for more than those twenty
pounds. "And you," she said, "do you know Lady Ongar?"
"I have not that honour myself."
"Oh, you have not; and do you want to be introduced?"
"Not exactly,--not at present; at some future day I shall hope to
have the pleasure. But I am right in believing that she and you are
very intimate? Now what are you going to do for my friend Archie
Clavering?"
"Oh-h-h!" exclaimed Sophie.
"Yes. What are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering?
Seventy pounds, you know, ma'am, is a smart bit of money!"
"A smart bit of money, is it? That is what you think on your leetle
property down in Warwickshire."
"It isn't my property, ma'am, at all. It belongs to my uncle."
"Oh, it is your uncle that has the leetle property. And what had
your uncle to do with Lady Ongar? What is your uncle to your friend
Archie?"
"Nothing at all, ma'am; nothing on earth."
"Then why do you tell me all this rigmarole about your uncle and his
leetle property, and Warwickshire? What have I to do with your uncle?
Sir, I do not understand you,--not at all. Nor do I know why I have
the honour to see you here, Captain Bood-dle."
Even Doodles, redoubtable as he was--even he, with all his smartness,
felt that he was overcome, and that this woman was too much for him.
He was altogether perplexed, as he could not perceive whether in all
her tirade about the little property she had really misunderstood
him, and had in truth thought that he had been talking about his
uncle, or whether the whole thing was cunning on her part. The
reader, perhaps, will have a more correct idea of this lady than
Captain Boodle had been able to obtain. She had now risen from her
sofa, and was standing as though she expected him to go; but he had
not as yet opened the budget of his business.
"I am here, ma'am," said he, "to speak to you about my friend,
Captain Clavering."
"Then you can go back to your friend, and tell him I have nothing to
say. And, more than that, Captain Booddle"--the woman intensified
the name in a most disgusting manner, with the evident purpose of
annoying him; of that he had become quite sure--"more than that, his
sending you here is an impertinence. Will you tell him that?"
"No, ma'am, I will not."
"Perhaps you are his laquais," continued the inexhaustible Sophie,
"and are obliged to come when he send you?"
"I am no man's laquais, ma'am."
"If so, I do not blame you; or, perhaps, it is your way to make your
love third or fourth hand down in Warwickshire?"
"Damn Warwickshire!" said Doodles, who was put beyond himself.
"With all my heart. Damn Warwickshire." And the horrid woman grinned
at him as she repeated his words. "And the leetle property, and
the uncle, if you wish it; and the leetle nephew,--and the leetle
nephew,--and the leetle nephew!" She stood over him as she repeated
the last words with wondrous rapidity, and grinned at him, and
grimaced and shook herself, till Doodles was altogether bewildered.
If this was a Russian spy he would avoid such in future, and keep
himself for the milder acerbities of Newmarket, and the easier
chaff of his club. He looked up into her face at the present moment,
striving to think of some words by which he might assist himself. He
had as yet performed no part of his mission, but any such performance
was now entirely out of the question. The woman had defied him, and
had altogether thrown Clavering overboard. There was no further
question of her services, and therefore he felt himself to be quite
entitled to twit her with the payment she had taken.
"And how about my friend's seventy pounds?" said he.
"How about seventy pounds! a leetle man comes here and tells me he
is a Booddle in Warwickshire, and says he has an uncle with a very
leetle property, and asks me how about seventy pounds! Suppose I ask
you how about the policeman, what will you say then?"
"You send for him and you shall hear what I say."
"No; not to take away such a leetle man as you. I send for a
policeman when I am afraid. Booddle in Warwickshire is not a terrible
man. Suppose you go to your friend and tell him from me that he have
chose a very bad Mercury in his affairs of love;--the worst Mercury
I ever see. Perhaps the Warwickshire Mercuries are not very good. Can
you tell me, Captain Booddle, how they make love down in
Warwickshire?"
"And that is all the satisfaction I am to have?"
"Who said you was to have satisfaction? Very little satisfaction I
should think you ever have, when you come as a Mercury."
"My friend means to know something about that seventy pounds."
"Seventy pounds! If you talk to me any more of seventy pounds, I will
fly at your face." As she spoke this she jumped across at him as
though she were really on the point of attacking him with her nails,
and he, in dismay, retreated to the door. "You, and your seventy
pounds! Oh, you English! What mean mens you are! Oh! a Frenchman
would despise to do it. Yes; or a Russian or a Pole. But you,--you
want it all down in black and white, like a butcher's beel. You know
nothing, and understand nothing, and can never speak, and can never
hold your tongues. You have no head, but the head of a bull. A bull
can break all the china in a shop,--dash, smash, crash,--all the
pretty things gone in a minute! So can an Englishman. Your seventy
pounds! You will come again to me for seventy pounds, I think." In
her energy she had acted the bull, and had exhibited her idea of the
dashing, the smashing and the crashing, by the motion of her head and
the waving of her hands.
"And you decline to say anything about the seventy pounds?" said
Doodles, resolving that his courage should not desert him.
Whereupon the divine Sophie laughed. "Ha, ha, ha! I see you have not
got on any gloves, Captain Booddle."
"Gloves; no. I don't wear gloves."
"Nor your uncle with the leetle property in Warwickshire? Captain
Clavering, he wears a glove. He is a handy man." Doodles stared at
her, understanding nothing of this. "Perhaps it is in your waistcoat
pocket," and she approached him fearlessly, as though she were about
to deprive him of his watch.
"I don't know what you mean," said he, retreating.
"Ah, you are not a handy man, like my friend the other captain, so
you had better go away. Yes; you had better go to Warwickshire. In
Warwickshire, I suppose, they make ready for your Michaelmas dinners.
You have four months to get fat. Suppose you go away and get fat."
Doodles understood nothing of her sarcasm, but began to perceive
that he might as well take his departure. The woman was probably a
lunatic, and his friend Archie had no doubt been grossly deceived
when he was sent to her for assistance. He had some faint idea that
the seventy pounds might be recovered from such a madwoman; but in
the recovery his friend would be exposed, and he saw that the money
must be abandoned. At any rate, he had not been soft enough to
dispose of any more treasure.
"Good-morning, ma'am," he said, very curtly.
"Good-morning to you, Captain Booddle. Are you coming again another
day?"
"Not that I know of, ma'am."
"You are very welcome to stay away. I like your friend the better.
Tell him to come and be handy with his glove. As for you,--suppose
you go to the leetle property."
Then Captain Boodle went, and, as soon as he had made his way out
into the open street, stood still and looked around him, that by the
aspect of things familiar to his eyes he might be made certain that
he was in a world with which he was conversant. While in that room
with the Spy he had ceased to remember that he was in London,--his
own London, within a mile of his club, within a mile of Tattersall's.
He had been, as it were, removed to some strange world in which the
tact, and courage, and acuteness natural to him had not been of avail
to him. Madame Gordeloup had opened a new world to him,--a new world
of which he desired to make no further experience. Gradually he
began to understand why he had been desired to prepare himself for
Michaelmas eating. Gradually some idea about Archie's glove glimmered
across his brain. A wonderful woman certainly was the Russian spy,--a
phenomenon which in future years he might perhaps be glad to remember
that he had seen in the flesh. The first race-horse which he might
ever own and name himself he would certainly call the Russian spy.
In the meantime, as he slowly walked across Berkeley Square, he
acknowledged to himself that she was not mad, and acknowledged also
that the less said about that seventy pounds the better. From thence
he crossed Piccadilly, and sauntered down St. James's Street into
Pall Mall, revolving in his mind how he would carry himself with
Clavvy. He, at any rate, had his ground for triumph. He had parted
with no money, and had ascertained by his own wit that no available
assistance from that quarter was to be had in the matter which his
friend had in hand.
It was some hours after this when the two friends met, and at that
time Doodles was up to his eyes in chalk and the profitable delights
of pool. But Archie was too intent on his business to pay much regard
to his friend's proper avocation. "Well, Doodles," he said, hardly
waiting till his ambassador had finished his stroke and laid his ball
close waxed to one of the cushions. "Well; have you seen her?"
"Oh, yes; I've seen her," said Doodles, seating himself on an exalted
bench which ran round the room, while Archie, with anxious eyes,
stood before him.
"Well?" said Archie.
"She's a rum 'un. Thank 'ee, Griggs; you always stand to me like a
brick." This was said to a young lieutenant who had failed to hit the
captain's ball, and now tendered him a shilling with a very bitter
look.
"She is queer," said Archie,--"certainly."
"Queer! By George, I'll back her for the queerest bit of horseflesh
going any way about these diggings. I thought she was mad at first,
but I believe she knows what she's about."
"She knows what she's about well enough. She's worth all the money if
you can only get her to work."
"Bosh, my dear fellow."
"Why bosh? What's up now?"
"Bosh! Bosh! Bosh! Me to play, is it?" Down he went, and not finding
a good open for a hazard, again waxed himself to the cushion, to the
infinite disgust of Griggs, who did indeed hit the ball this time,
but in such a way as to make the loss of another life from Griggs'
original three a matter of certainty. "I don't think it's hardly
fair," whispered Griggs to a friend, "a man playing always for
safety. It's not the game I like, and I shan't play at the same table
with Doodles any more."
"It's all bosh," repeated Doodles, coming back to his seat. "She
don't mean to do anything, and never did. I've found her out."
"Found out what?"
"She's been laughing at you. She got your money out from under your
glove, didn't she?"
"Well, I did put it there."
"Of course you did. I knew that I should find out what was what if
I once went there. I got it all out of her. But, by George, what a
woman she is! She swore at me to my very face."
"Swore at you! In French you mean?"
"No; not in French at all, but damned me in downright English. By
George, how I did laugh!--me and everybody belonging to me. I'm
blessed if she didn't."
"There was nothing like that about her when I saw her."
"You didn't turn her inside out as I've done; but stop half a
moment." Then he descended, chalked away at his cue hastily, pocketed
a shilling or two, and returned. "You didn't turn her inside out as
I've done. I tell you, Clavvy, there's nothing to be done there, and
there never was. If you'd kept on going yourself she'd have drained
you as dry,--as dry as that table. There's your thirty pounds back,
and, upon my word, old fellow, you ought to thank me."
Archie did thank him, and Doodles was not without his triumph. Of
the frequent references to Warwickshire which he had been forced
to endure, he said nothing, nor yet of the reference to Michaelmas
dinners; and, gradually, as he came to talk frequently to Archie of
the Russian spy, and perhaps also to one or two others of his more
intimate friends, he began to convince himself that he really had
wormed the truth out of Madame Gordeloup, and got altogether the
better of that lady, in a very wonderful way.