STRUGGLE.
Robert Streightley slept but little on the night after his visit to
Middlemeads; for that note which he had found awaiting him from Mr.
Guyon sat heavy on his soul. Wanted to see him on particular business,
eh? What did that particular business mean? Not more money advances,
surely? Such transactions as he had had with Mr. Guyon were small
enough to a man accustomed to the particular kind of business, the
loans and contracts and subsidies, with which the firm of Streightley
and Son were in the habit of dealing; but yet Robert, however wilfully
blind, could not shut his eyes to the fact that he had already
supplied Mr. Guyon with loans for which he had nothing like adequate
security. Could Mr. Guyon possibly mean to touch upon that other
subject, which, as a man of the world, he must have already divined
lay very close at Robert Streightley's heart? Could he intend to
broach the question of his daughter----? As the idea crossed
Streightley's mind he felt his cheek flush, and the cold beads of
perspiration start out upon his forehead.
For he was an honourable man, brought up in an honourable school,
where "a fair fight and no favour" had been the motto from time
immemorial, and where any one taking undue advantage or seeking to
compass his ends by unfair means toward his rival would have been
scouted with ignominy. And he felt--how could he but feel?--that the
struggle in which he was at that moment engaged was scarcely being
conducted in the same open manner. He felt that he was creeping up
towards the assault under the protection of a hireling guerilla force,
which, with all the advantage of the knowledge of the ground, was
pushing its renegade advantage, furthering his advance here, throwing
out earthworks for the hindrance of the enemy there, and all from the
mere sordid love of gain and chances of plunder, but without the
smallest heartiness of feeling in the matter. Not a nice feeling
for a man of Robert Streightley's sense of punctilio. It galled him,
and he chafed against it sadly during the long watches of that night.
What was it? a caprice, a sudden fancy, a madness which had stung
him,--that he, a mature man of confirmed bachelor habits, with his
own household gods around him, and his own life completely settled
and hitherto sufficient, should suddenly break through all his
customs--yes, that would be nothing, but break through them in a weak
and feeble manner--break through them in a way in which he, so far as
he read it to himself, took no active part, but suffered himself to be
the mere tool and instrument--for his own purposes indeed--in hands
which were certainly not exempt from suspicion of being soiled. This
was bad, very bad indeed. What should he say to himself suppose a
parallel case in the business world--that world which he understood,
which had hitherto been his sole life, and out of which he felt he
could not with safety emerge--had been submitted to him? Why, he would
have declared that, as a point of honour, a man in that position ought
at once to set himself free from such trammels. And if in business,
surely in love there was all the more reason for his doing so. For his
part he would hesitate no longer; he would at once drop the Guyon
acquaintance, sinking the advances which he had up to that point
made to Mr. Guyon, and writing them off as salutary experience
lightly paid for, and---- And then, as he lay tossing on his fevered
pillow, rose before him a vision of Katharine in all her grace and
beauty--Katharine saucily laughing at Mr. Mostyn's solemn vanity;
Katharine the cynosure of all at the Botanical promenade, queening it
amongst the loveliest and the best-bred, evoking admiration from all;
Katharine with earnest face and downcast eyes, then with flushed cheek
and sparkling glance, in conversation with Gordon Frere--No! that last
thought was too much. In Robert Streightley's nature there lay
hitherto latent an amount of mad, blinding, unreasoning jealousy,
whose existence was suspected by none of his friends, by him least of
all; but it leapt into flame as this last picture crossed his mind,
and all thoughts of withdrawal from the career in which he had
suffered himself to be embarked shrivelled up before its scorching
heat. It should not be from want of perseverance on his part, nor from
want of employment of all the resources at his command, that he would
fail in this the--yes, the really first scheme in his life in which he
had taken hearty interest. He would need all his skill, and tact, and
patience to carry it through--ah if he could only sleep now--if he
could only forget for an instant those haunting eyes, that queenly
form, that sweet winning smile!
He lay awake during all the early hours of that morning; and it was
nearly five o'clock before he sunk into a heavy, unrefreshing slumber,
from which, despite old Alice's repeated warnings, he did not wake
until long past nine. Then he had his bath and dressed himself, and
went slouching down to breakfast with pale face and red eyelids, and a
wearied anxious look. Mrs. Streightley had ere this sallied forth
armed with a complete library of little red books, over which she
waged weekly warfare with the neighbouring tradespeople; and Ellen had
an "early service" on, followed by a little light recreation of
district-visiting and a small interlude of first meeting Of coal and
flannel fund; so that Robert had only his old nurse to watch over him
at breakfast, and render every mouthful additionally distasteful by
her comments.
"Well, Lord knows I never thought to have lived to have seen this
day," said the old woman, when Robert, after a vain attempt at eating,
pushed his plate away from before him--"that any child of your
father's, let alone you, for whom he thought, and cared, and slaved
most, should have quarrelled with the victuals provided for him in
this house, I didn't expect."
"Ah, nurse!" said Robert, trying to smile, "it's not what's
provided--I'm not well just now, somehow--I----"
"Not well, indeed! I know what's the matter with you. You're in love,
and pleased with ruin as the saying is,--that's what ails you. O,
don't frown and look so; do you think the old woman don't know those
signs, Robert, my boy? No appetite, and looking a long way off, and
never speaking when spoke to? Lor' bless yer. And do you think old
Alice don't know what that means? Come, they're all out, Robert! tell
me who it is. Tell the old woman who nursed you when you couldn't
speak, or scarce cry, for the matter of that, you was that weak; and
the doctor never thought to have brought you through it, and wouldn't
if it hadn't been for me, though I say it as shouldn't; tell old Alice
all about it, deary; tell her and trust her, as you used to--O, so
long ago."
"There's nothing to tell, Alice," said Robert with a forced laugh,
rising from his chair; "you've made a pretty story for yourself,
nurse, but I'm too old now to be amused at it even, much less to think
of taking one of the characters. I'm a little overdone with business,
that's all."
"Is it?" said the old woman shortly. "Well,--if it's business, that's
all right. But it's the first time since ever I've been connected with
the house of Streightley and Son, and that's nigh fifty year, that I
heard it was necessary to forward the business of the house, or to
captivate the brokers and the shipping-agents and that like, by
dressing oneself up in fal-lal clothes, and by dancing attendance at
opera and play houses (I found the papers of them in your pockets)
until all hours in the morning. And I'm thinking that if that is the
way, your father made but a poor hand at it, Master Robert; and it's a
great mercy that he didn't ruin the whole concern." And so saying, and
with a sniff of great meaning, the old lady retired from the room.
By no means reassured or made more comfortable even by this short
interview--for he was a nervous man in some things and very much
disliked what he called "being upset"--Robert Streightley pushed the
breakfast things away from him, and started off for town. He had
dropped the omnibus long since, and took a cab as a matter of course;
and as he journeyed along he could not help contrasting the splendour
of the house he had yesterday visited with the meanness of that one
which he had just left. Both were his own, and both were to a certain
extent typical of his life: in the latter with frugal commonplace
people his money had been made; in the former with one bright being
it should be spent. Yes; he had had enough of this daily grind of
business, this sordid strife; and he had determined that
henceforth--if his hopes were realised--he would live a different
life. If his hopes were realised? what forbade their realisation? This
man,--this Gordon Frere, was younger it is true, better-looking, more
of a "lady's man" than he; but he himself was not so old, not so
hideous, not so--Ah! good God! What a fool he was for arguing the
question in this way, even to himself! He felt that he loved this
girl, and that on that deep love and earnest devotion alone must he
rely for the success of his suit.
He found Mr. Guyon awaiting him in the dining-room, with the _Morning
Post_ on the very verge of the table; and a large blotting-book, a
portentous inkstand, and a perfect armoury of steel pens close in
front of him. The flavour of Turkish tobacco hung round the apartment,
and a cut-glass goblet containing the remains of a draught that looked
suspiciously like brandy and soda-water stood on the velvet
mantelpiece. Mr. Guyon himself, dressed in the loose lounging jacket
and the Turkish trousers, lay on the sofa with the butt-end of a
cigarette in his mouth, and extended his hand to his friend in cordial
greeting.
"I take this doosid kind of you, my dear Streightley, coming round in
this way when I asked you. Doosid kind!" said Mr. Guyon; "and I show
my appreciation of it by receiving you without the least ceremony or
the least humbug--which is the greater compliment. When one says to a
fellow, 'I want to see you on a matter of business,' the fellow who's
good enough to come round naturally expects to see the fellow who sent
for him in a state of business--stiff shirt-collar, and almanac, and
all that kind of thing. That's what I myself should do to some
fellows; but I don't to you. I say to myself, 'He's above all that
sort of dodgery. He's a real man of business, and would see through it
at once. Let him take me as I am. I'm an idle, nothing-doing,
pleasure-seeking son of a gun: he knows it; why should I attempt to
disguise my natural self from him and prove myself to be somebody
else? Let him see me as my natural self."
Here Mr. Guyon paused for an instant to take a sip from the cut-glass
goblet and to throw away the butt-end of the cigarette. Feeling it
incumbent on him to say something, Robert Streightley murmured, "Very
kind!"
"No," said Mr. Guyon, raising himself on his elbow, and looking lazily
across the table at his visitor, "not very kind. Shrewd, perhaps, but
not kind. When a man is in want of serious advice, and goes to the
fountain-head for--that kind of thing--boldly and without scruple, he
may be said to be shrewd. Now, that's my case; and I come to you."
This, so far, was so like the commencement of Mr. Guyon's
conversations when loans were in question that Streightley had made up
his mind that more money was required; he changed his opinion,
however, as his host proceeded.
"Now, my dear Robert,--you'll forgive an old fellow's familiarity,
won't you? I don't often indulge in a fancy, but when I do I'm like
the--ivy, damme, I cling. You can see, you must have seen plainly
enough long since, that I'm not a man of business. In three words, I
hate it. If I had been a rich man, I'd have had a fellow to do all my
business for me while I smoked my cigarette and looked on; and
hitherto whenever it's been a question of business, money, and all
those horrible details arising from the want of it, I've shirked it as
long as I could, and then stumbled through it in a devilish blind,
stupid, haphazard kind of manner. That's been all very well so far;
but now another question arises,--a very different question--one
touching the heart and that kind of thing, and the welfare of a person
who--however, I'll go into that by and by;--a question on which, I
feel so deeply, that I've determined to be guided by the advice of the
clearest-headed man of my acquaintance--and so I've sent for you."
Robert Streightley bowed, and murmured a few words of incoherent
thanks. Not money! Question on which he felt so deeply! What was Mr.
Guyon driving at?
"I will be perfectly plain with you, my dear Robert," said Mr. Guyon,
"frank as the day, all open and aboveboard. I won't disguise from you,
I don't attempt to disguise it from myself, that perhaps there never
was a man less fitted than I am to have been blessed with what would
be a crowning solace to many men--a daughter." Streightley
involuntarily started as these words met his ear; and Mr. Guyon
noticed the start, but he did not betray himself, and proceeded. "I'm
not a domestic man, and not cut out for domestic happiness. I believe
my enemies call me a loose fish, and 'pon my soul I think they're
right. I like my rubber and my club, and--in fact, my freedom. I'm a
sort of claret-and-_entrée_ butterfly, and was never intended for the
roast-joint and bread-and-cheese _menagé_ of respectability and home
consumption. However, what was intended and what is are two very
different things. I have a daughter, and--well, you're a man of the
world, and I won't bore you with a father's maudlin praises of his
child. She is--there, I was very near breaking into what I had just
declared I would not do!--what I mean to say is, her future is my
greatest care. I've been a man of the world myself, and I know all she
will be exposed to, and, my dear Robert, I tremble when I think of it.
I've only to refer to my own conscience to see what might be in store
for her. Her poor mother--of whom she is the very image--was weak
enough to marry me; and though--though I always treated her as a
gentleman should treat his wife, by Jove! I know I--many
shortcomings."
Here Mr. Guyon buried his face in a large white pocket-handkerchief;
and Streightley, not knowing what to say or do, drummed vacantly on
the table.
"You follow me, my dear boy? Of course, I knew you would," resumed Mr.
Guyon after a momentary pause. "Now wait and hear the rest. A girl
like Katharine, possessing--well, what I suppose even I may call many
attractions--will necessarily receive a vast amount of admiration from
all sorts of men; and it will be my duty--and a duty which I shall
perform with the greatest strictness; she has no mother, you know,
poor girl! and I must be doubly vigilant--to see that she does not get
led away and tempted into any foolish alliance by any good-looking
young fashionable fop with nothing but his good looks to recommend
him. What my girl requires in a husband--for she is light and giddy,
like the rest of her sex--is ballast, my dear Robert; a man of matured
experience and not too young in years; one whom she could look up to,
who could give her the position which her beauty, and--I may say her
birth--entitle her to;--that's the sort of husband to whom alone I
should be happy in giving my Katharine."
Mr. Guyon paused once more, and Streightley bowed again in an absent
manner, his right hand all the time plucking at his chin.
"The--the ideal, if I may so call it, that I have just drawn by no
means resembles the writer of a letter which I received this morning
honouring me by a proposal for Katharine's hand." Streightley's arm
dropped upon the table, and he leant forward with an eager gaze. "Yes,
my dear Robert, the Goths are already in full march upon the--what
d'ye call 'em?--Capitol; and it is under these circumstances that I
have sent for you to ask your advice."
"You--you're very good," murmured Streightley; "and of course any
thing that I can do--but I really scarcely see in such a matter as
this--and without knowing--knowing any thing of the--the parties----"
"My dear Robert, you don't think I would have sent for you with the
notion of making any half-confidences. You shall know every detail.
The writer of this letter," pursued Mr. Guyon, producing a packet from
his desk,--"of these two letters rather, for there is an enclosure for
Katharine which I have not yet delivered--is a young man whom you may
have seen with us--a Mr. Gordon Frere. A doosid good-looking,
well-born, well-connected young fellow, who seems tremendously in
earnest about it too," continued Mr. Guyon, balancing his trim gold
eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose; "for he writes to me to say--to
say that--there, I need not read his letter--the gist of it is that
he's been down to his father, at some place in the country where he
writes from, and his father, who is a member of the House, has promised
to use his influence with Government to get him a decent berth. Now
that's plucky and honourable--I like that, eh, Robert?"
"O yes, sir--very honourable indeed," said Streightley nervously. "I
think you mentioned that you had not forwarded the enclosure to Miss
Guyon?"
"Not yet,--no. I was desirous of having your opinion--as a man of
business--on the proposal."
It had come at last then, this long-expected blow to that dream of
future happiness in which, spite of his own better reasoning, he had
dared to indulge. She would be wrested from him--be taken to the heart
of that smooth-spoken dandy whom he had loathed from the first instant
of seeing him. All her loveliness--ah, how he remembered each
brilliant charm!--would go to grace the life of that silly fop. The
blood rushed back to Robert Streightley's heart as he thought of all
this; his teeth were clenched, his pallid lips trembled and shook, and
he thought that if he had had Gordon Frere before him at that instant
he could have killed him without remorse. For an instant his better
feeling struggled with his passion--the struggle was short and sharp,
but the passion was victorious; and he said, in a strange dry voice,
"This gentleman scarcely fulfils the requirements you named just now,
Mr. Guyon?"
"Admirably put, my dear Robert--clearly and admirably put! I must
allow it, he does not."
"If there were some one who, by his age and position at least, was
calculated to--to be to this young lady--what you----"
"Yes, my dear Robert, yes I--"
"Who----" Then with a great gulp----"I'm a bad hand at beating about
the bush, sir. What I have seen of Miss Guyon has so enthralled me,
that--that I would give my life to win her for my wife."
He sought his handkerchief to wipe his fevered lips, but Mr. Guyon
caught his hand and pressed it warmly. "You, Robert, you? My dear boy,
those are the happiest words that my ears have heard this many a day.
You? Why, in a father's--what you may call fondest dreams, I could not
have hoped for such good news as this! You? Why, of all people on
earth, the very man!"
"The very man" looked any thing but happy as he sat there with pallid
lips and puckered forehead and rapidly-beating heart--sat there silent
and downcast, only occasionally raising his eyes to glance at the
letter which Mr. Guyon had placed on the table before him. At that
letter he stole long wistful glances; it seemed to possess for him a
kind of baleful attraction; and after a short interval his regard
fixed on it so directly that his companion could not fail to notice
it. But though Mr. Guyon fully comprehended what was passing within
Robert Streightley's breast, it by no means suited him to refer to it
at once.
"My dear Robert," said he, after a few minutes' pause, "the unexpected
delight of your communication just made has really taken me--even old
stager as I am--what I may call off my legs! I understand you to
propose for my daughter's hand?"
"The very man" said never a word, but bowed his head abstractedly.
"Then I congratulate you and myself, my dear boy!" said the elder man,
again seizing his companion's passive hand--"and I think we may regard
it as a settled thing. My daughter has not seen much of you at
present, but I am quite certain that when she once comes to know the
qualities of your head and heart, she will----"
"What about that letter, Mr. Guyon?" said Robert Streightley in a
cold, hard voice, pointing to the envelope still lying on the table.
"That letter!" echoed Mr. Guyon, his face falling considerably. "Well,
my dear Robert, there's no denying that--eh? That letter--you see that
young man Frere, Gordon Frere, gentlemanly fellow, good address, and
all that kind of thing, has had opportunities of--in fact making his
way, which--wilful woman and so on. Gad, if that letter were
delivered, there's no knowing how things might turn out!"
Streightley's heart sunk within him, and he turned faint and sick; but
he controlled himself sufficiently to say:
"Then you were a little rash in your congratulations, Mr. Guyon?"
"Not at all, my dear boy, not at all. Recollect--I spoke of a
contingency. I said--_if_ that letter were delivered."
"_If_ that letter were delivered to Miss Guyon? Do you mean to say
that you would dare to Withhold it from her?"
"'Dare' is a very awkward word, my dear Robert. It appears to me that
if one could select two men as judges of what should or should not be
addressed to a young lady, they would be her father--and her intended
husband."
"But that letter!"
"Well, my dear fellow--that letter? Shall I give it to Katharine?
Shall we instal Mr. Gordon Frere into what should and what will be
your position?--shall I subject myself to a fortnight's confounded
rows, and finally saddle myself for life with a 'detrimental'
son-in-law? or shall I quietly put it by, and acquaint my daughter
with your very delightful proposal? My dear Robert, you look aside
and shake your head; but I am an older man than you, and know that I
am--that we are--acting for the best. Recollect what the fellow--Kean,
I think--says in the play: 'He that is robbed not wanting what is
stolen, let him not know it and he's not robbed at all.' Doosid good
that, and doosid appropriate. So we'll settle upon that course, eh?
and you'll leave all to me?--What! you're not going, my dear
boy--you'll stay to luncheon?"
"Not this morning, thank you; not now, Mr. Guyon--I--I must go now!"
and Robert Streightley passed into the street, and for the first time
in his life felt a sense of shame at his heart, and a desire to shun
the glances of those whom he encountered.
Mr. Guyon, so soon as the door had closed behind his friend, drew his
chair to his desk, carefully read through Gordon Frere's letter to
Katharine, hitherto unopened, replaced it and the letter to himself in
their envelope, which he carefully endorsed with the words "Shown to
R.S." and the date, and locked them away in a private drawer. Then
he wrote a rather long and elaborate letter to Mr. Frere, addressed
it with great care, was very natty in his arrangement of its
postage-stamp, sealed it with a large splodge of red wax bearing his
coat-of-arms, and went upstairs.
On the third night after the events just recorded Charles Yeldham and
Gordon Frere were walking up and down the departure platform at London
Bridge, by the side of the mail-train just about to start. Frere was
dressed in travelling costume, and looked, as most young fellows do in
such garb, sufficiently picturesque. But his face was deadly pale,
save where there were blotches of bright red under his eyes.
"Now listen, Charley," said he, "and hear my last words. I go away,
cursing that woman. You know I'm not romantic, or melodramatic, or any
thing of that kind; but she's spoilt my life for me, and I curse her
for it. It's too bad,--by the Lord, it's too bad! You know how I--yes,
damme, how I loved her. Followed her about like a spaniel, and she
could have done any thing with me. And then never to keep her
appointment, never to send me a line; and then when I write and make
her a regular offer, never to take the least notice--not a line, by
Jove!--and to leave her infernal old father to write to me that she's
engaged to that cold-blooded, mannerless beast, Streightley! O, I know
he's a friend of yours; but, damme it's too bad! And when the
governor, dear old boy, had actually got me a nomination to the
Treasury, and--however, that's thrown up, and I'm going out to an
infernal German principality to be secretary to that bewigged old fool
in that carriage, and leaving you, and all through the tricks of that
heartless coquette! O yes, all right! I hear the bell, and I'm going
to get in. Now, God bless you, old boy; but recollect my last words. I
leave this place cursing that girl, and I'll be even with her yet!"
Mr. Frere wrung his friend's hand and sprang into the carriage as the
train began to move. Charles Yeldham waited until the last glimmer of
its red lamps had died away, then turned slowly round, and walked
towards his dreary chambers.
"It's very bad for you, Gordon, my poor boy!" said he to himself as he
strolled along; "very bad indeed, just now! but I sadly fear it will
be worse for others in the long-run--and for poor Bob Streightley
worst of all!"