A BUNCH OF VIOLETS.
Dr. Oliver Birnie, as the medical adviser of Mr. Gurth Egerton, called
upon him now and then at his residence, and sometimes kept his brougham
waiting outside while doctor and patient had a friendly chat.
It was on one of these now frequent occasions that Mr. Egerton revealed
to his old friend an idea which, vague at first, had at last begun to
assume definite proportions.
‘Birnie,’ said Mr. Egerton, one morning, flinging away his cigarette
and looking straight in the doctor’s face, ‘I want something to do.’
‘Do you? Well, I can’t give you anything, I’m afraid. My present
coachman suits me admirably, and my boy delivers the medicines without
a mistake.’
‘I’m serious, Birnie,’ said Gurth, thrusting his hands deeply into his
pockets and walking up and down the room. ‘I’m sick of this humdrum
existence. I’ve travelled and got tired of it, and now I want a
change—I want something to do.’
‘My dear fellow, of course you do,’ answered the doctor, ‘and with your
energy you might do anything. Collect postage-stamps, coins, fossils,
write stories for the magazines, join an amateur dramatic club, go in
for athletics, learn the banjo. Why, my dear fellow, with your leisure
and your money, there is no end of things you might find to do!’
Gurth turned almost savagely on his companion. The bantering tone
displeased him.
‘Drop it, Birnie!’ he said. ‘Don’t you know when a man’s in earnest?
I’m sick of the useless life I lead, I tell you. I want something to
engage my thoughts—something to call out the latent energy there is in
me. I’ve got money, and I believe I’ve got brains, and yet I’m nobody.
I don’t mean to be nobody any longer.’
‘Good gracious me, Gurth, you astonish me!’ said the doctor, assuming a
serious tone. ‘I thought you shrank from publicity of any kind! I
always fancied that you hated society, and that being nobody was your
favourite _rôle_.’
‘That’s done with for ever! I’m a new man, Oliver Birnie! The Gurth
Egerton you know was drowned in the _Bon Espoir_.’
Birnie went up to Gurth, and took his hand professionally to feel his
pulse.
Gurth snatched his hand away. ‘Don’t be a fool, old man!’ he exclaimed.
‘I know what I’m saying. I’m going in for a new life, and I want you to
help me. Sit down.’
Birnie sat down wondering what Gurth’s new craze could be. He saw that
banter was out of place, and that, whatever Gurth had got on his mind,
it was evidently something which had been there a long time.
For a moment the two men sat opposite each other in silence. Then
Gurth, with a slight tremor in his voice, began:
‘I’m going to talk about a time, Birnie, which we had both rather
forget; but I can’t avoid it. Once in my life you did me a great
service.’
Birnie said nothing. He nodded his head, as much as to say,
‘I quite understand what you mean.’
‘For that service I have shown my gratitude in every way I can. I don’t
want to refer to it more than I can help; but I think you have had no
cause to charge me with a lack of appreciation.’
Birnie’s head implied, ‘Certainly not!’
‘You not only rendered me that great service, but you have always
guarded my interests during my long absences, and you have kept me from
being annoyed by those who might have been very troublesome.’
Dr. Birnie spoke for the first time.
‘My dear Gurth, don’t give me too much credit. If I have kept Heckett
from worrying you, I have done so by giving him what he asked for. When
Marston turned up, I thought it best to accede to his request, and lend
him five hundred pounds for you. I have paid your money away
judiciously, my dear fellow, that is all—that is all.’
Birnie shook his head deprecatingly, as though to shake from it the
praise which was being undeservedly bestowed upon him.
‘I don’t care what you say, Birnie; you’ve always been a good old chum
to me, and that’s why I don’t want to take an important step without
asking your advice.’
‘My advice, Gurth, is always at your service.’
‘Well, then, shortly and simply, I’ve made up my mind to two things—to
marry, and to get into Parliament.’
Birnie received the intelligence without a movement; only the look of
his eyes altered slightly, and they seemed to study Egerton’s face more
keenly.
‘I congratulate you on both determinations, old fellow. Splendid
things, both of them—matrimony and the legislature. Which do you woo
first—the lady or the constituency?’
Gurth laughed.
‘I haven’t begun to look out the lady yet,’ he said, ‘or the
constituency either. But don’t you really see any reason why I should
marry and become a public man?’
‘None.’
Gurth gave a little sigh of relief.
Birnie rose to go. He shook hands with Gurth heartily.
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that neither of your new ambitions will interrupt
our old friendship, Gurth. We shall be always the same to each other as
we have been, I trust?’
‘Always,’ answered Gurth with emphasis.
Dr. Birnie sat back in his carriage, as he was being whirled through
the London streets, and thought.
He wasn’t quite sure what this new idea of Gurth’s meant, or what move
on the board he ought to make in consequence of it. He was a man who
never took any active steps if he saw a chance of events shaping
themselves to suit his ends without his interference. Once or twice
events had played into his hands so well that he was always inclined to
give them a fair field.
At present Gurth Egerton was only a gold mine, in which he had dug now
and then for an odd nugget or two, but he had always considered that
the mine was there, and that no one could very well dig in it without
his permission. With Birnie the knowledge of power was almost as great
a pleasure as the enjoyment of it, and he was, moreover, endowed with
that great gift of patience which enables a man to bide a lifetime
waiting to strike home, rather than risk giving a weak blow by striking
in a hurry.
Gurth Egerton believed that Birnie had given a false certificate of
death in Ralph’s case out of friendship for him, and in his impulsive
way he had there and then flung himself completely into Birnie’s hands,
leaving him to live rent free, to manage his property, to pay all
claims made upon him. Birnie was appointed executor to his will, and
was in every way his confidential adviser.
But one thing Gurth had not told Birnie, or anyone else, and that was
that Ralph was married to old Heckett’s daughter, and that consequently
the child that cost Gertie her life, after the father’s death had cost
her her reason, was really the legitimate owner of the wealth which he,
Gurth, was now enjoying—that is, provided Ralph’s story was true, and
not the brag of a vindictive drunkard.
Gurth consoled himself with the fact that, beyond Ralph’s statement to
him, there was no proof of anything of the sort. The marriage
certificate which Ralph had boasted of having in his possession had
never been found, and Gurth was not likely to go searching registries
and making inquiries in order to discover that which at present it was
perfectly allowable for him to know nothing about.
From time to time he had heard of Heckett, generally by finding that
gentleman’s name figuring against a sum of money which Birnie had paid
on his account. He had never seen him since his return, for the same
reason that he had never seen any of his old companions. He had shunned
them one and all. He had heard, too, from Birnie the story of Gertie’s
death and of the little Gertie who had grown up in Little Queer Street
among the animals. He was pleased to hear she was a clean, tidy child,
and that she seemed happy. Perhaps if he had heard of her being in rags
and starving, it might have annoyed his conscience. As it was, he felt
that Gertie was very well off; he knew that old Heckett’s dog-fancying
and wretched surroundings were only covers for a very different
occupation, and that there was no real poverty in the ease at all.
He supposed some day old Heckett would get into trouble or die, and
then he would befriend Gertie, getting at her in a roundabout way,
through Birnie, to avoid any suspicion of his having any interest in
her but a philanthropic one.
Gurth Egerton always kept a mental box of salve handy for a smarting
conscience, and, when any of his misdeeds troubled him, he had always a
scheme ready which would put everything right without doing himself any
harm.
But for his indecision of character, he might long ago have made his
position far better than it was, but at the last moment he had
generally abandoned his well thought-out scheme and ‘gone away.’
Now, however, he was really determined to do something definite—to lead
a new life and put his wealth to some use. So he made up his mind to
marry and to go into Parliament.
The parliamentary career was a question of time. There was much to be
done before he essayed that. He must get his name before the public a
little first, make up his mind what his polities were going to be, and
get about into society.
With regard to matrimony, he felt that the sooner he thought seriously
about that the better. There is a certain formula to be gone through,
even in the prosaic courtship which he intended his to be. He wanted a
certain amount of beauty, a knowledge of the world, and an agreeable
manner. He wanted to marry a head to his dinner-table, a hostess, a
something to be agreeable to his guests, and to get him invited out.
Wealth or rank he wasn’t particular about; that would be harder to get,
and he might have a lot of rivalry.
He stood in front of the glass and ran his fingers through his hair.
Yes, he was fairly good-looking, still young, wealthy, and a pleasant
talker.
There was no reason why he should not secure just what he wanted if he
kept his eyes open. He didn’t want to fall in love; he had no idea of
anything of that sort.
And yet he did.
His fate came to him as it comes to the most unromantic men. It came to
him about a fortnight after his interview with Birnie.
In his first desire to get his name well connected with philanthropy
for future benefit to himself, he gave twenty pounds to a bazaar in
connection with some hospital for children, or something of the sort.
He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he saw that the appeals were
going all over the parish, and so he sent his twenty pounds, to beat
his neighbours and get his first advertisement.
His donation brought him a letter of thanks from the vicar and a
special request to be present.
He went to the bazaar, to see the vicar and to show himself—to make a
start on his new war-path. He flung away a pound’s worth of silver on
shapeless pincushions and impossible penwipers, and walked through the
place, jostled and bored. He had shaken hands with the vicar, and been
introduced to a canon and to a rich old lady patroness, and was
elbowing his way through a crowd of giggling girls and cane-sucking
young men, when a little girl stopped him with a timid request for his
patronage.
He looked down and saw a child whom he guessed to be about ten years
old—pretty, pale-faced, with soft brown hair and big blue eyes. She
held up to him a bunch of violets.
‘Please to buy a bunch of sweet violets, sir.’
He put his hand in his pocket.
‘I’ve got no silver,’ he said.
He looked into the child’s face as he spoke, expecting to hear her say
that gold would do.
But the little one had not been trained to the brazen effrontery that
leers and grimaces under the coquettishly worn mantilla of charity.
‘Oh, please, if you come to our stall we’ll give you change. Come this
way.’
Gurth involuntarily followed the child to a stall in the corner, where
a lady was selling flowers.
The lady smiled as the child brought her prize up to be dealt with.
Gurth thought it was the sweetest smile he had ever seen in his life.
He forgot the child, forgot the flowers, and gazed in rapt admiration
at the beautiful face before him.
A strange thrill went through him as he looked—a feeling of ecstasy,
such as that which comes over some natures when, in world-famed
galleries, they stand for the first time in the presence of some
matchless work of art.
The young lady was too busy with her flowers and her change to notice
Gurth’s undisguised admiration. He almost started as she dropped the
shillings into his hand, counting them one by one.
He took the violets which the child had given him, and held them in his
hand.
Then he glanced at some which the lady had on her stall in front of
her.
‘I think I must buy one of you, after giving you so much trouble,’ he
said gently.
The lady picked up a bunch of violets and handed them to him with a
smile.
He dropped the nineteen shillings change into the hands of the
beautiful flower-girl, and, raising his hat, walked away.
As he did so, he heard the little girl cry out:
‘Oh, Miss Adrian, the gentleman’s left _my_ violets behind him!’
‘Run after him, quick, and give them to him,’ answered the lady; and in
a minute the child had caught Gurth up, and was holding the violets
towards him.
‘Thank you, little one,’ he said, smiling; ‘you are very honest at your
stall. What is the name, that I may recommend it to my friends?’
‘The lady is Miss Ruth Adrian,’ answered the child, taking the question
seriously, ‘and I am Gertie Heckett.’
The violets dropped from Gurth Eggerton’s hand, and the colour left his
face.
For a moment his lips moved, as though he would have spoken to the
child, then suddenly he turned on his heel, and, forcing his way
through the crowd, struggled out of the building and into the air.