MARTHA TANSEY.
"By-the-bye, Longcluse," said Richard, as they entered together the long
tiled passage that leads to the billiard-room, "you like pictures. There
is one here, banished to the housekeeper's room, that they say is a
Vandyck; we must have it cleaned and backed, and restored to its old
place--but would you care to look at it?"
"Certainly, I should like extremely," said Mr. Longcluse.
They were now at the door of the housekeeper's room, and Richard Arden
knocked.
"Come in," said the quavering voice of the old woman from within.
Richard Arden opened the door wide. The misty rose-coloured light of the
setting sun filled the room. From the wall right opposite, the pale
portrait of Sir Thomas Arden, who fought for the king during the great
Civil War, looked forth from his deep dingy frame full upon them, stern
and melancholy; the misty beams touching the softer lights of his long
hair and the gleam of his armour so happily, that the figure came out
from its dark background, and seemed ready to step forth to meet them.
As it happened, there was no one in the room but old Mrs. Tansey, the
housekeeper, who received Richard Arden standing.
From the threshold, Mr. Longcluse, lost in wonder at the noble picture,
gazed on it, with the exclamation, almost a cry, "Good heaven! what a
noble work! I had no idea there could be such a thing in existence and
so little known." And he stood for awhile in a rapture, gazing from the
threshold on the portrait.
At sound of that voice, with a vague and terrible recognition, the
housekeeper turned with a start towards the door, expecting, you'd have
fancied from her face, the entrance of a ghost. There was a tremble in
the voice with which she cried, "Lord! what's that?" a tremble in the
hand extended towards the door, and a shake also in the pale frowning
face, from which shone her glassy eyes.
Mr. Longcluse stepped in, and the old woman's gaze became, as he did so,
more shrinking and intense. When he saw her he recoiled, as a man might
who had all but trod upon a snake; and these two people gazed at one
another with a strange, uncertain scowl.
In Mr. Longcluse's case, this dismal caprice of countenance did not last
beyond a second or two. Richard Arden, as he turned his eyes from the
picture to say a word to his companion, saw it for a moment, and it
faded from his features--saw it, and the darkened countenance of the old
housekeeper, with a momentary shock. He glanced from one to the other
quickly, with a look of unconscious surprise. That look instantly
recalled Mr. Longcluse, who, laying his hand on Richard Arden's arm,
said, with a laugh--"I do believe I'm the most nervous man in the
world."
"You don't find the room too hot?" said Richard, inwardly ruminating
upon the strange looks he had just seen exchanged. "Mrs. Tansey keeps a
fire all the year round--don't you, Martha?"
Martha did not answer, nor seem to hear; she pressed her lean hand,
instead, to her heart, and drew back to a sofa and sat down, muttering,
"My God, lighten our darkness, we beseech thee!" and she looked as if
she were on the point of fainting.
"That is a true Vandyck," said Mr. Longcluse, who was now again looking
stedfastly at the picture. "It deserves to rank among his finest
portraits. I have never seen anything of his more forcible. You really
ought not to leave it here, and in this state." He walked over and
raised the lower end of the frame gently from the wall. "Yes, just as
you said, it wants to be backed. That portrait would not stand a shake,
I can tell you. The canvas is perfectly rotten, and the paint--if you
stand here you'll see--is ready to flake off. It is an awful pity. You
shouldn't leave it in such danger."
"No," said Richard, who was looking at the old woman. "I don't think
Martha's well--will you excuse me for a moment?" And he was at the
housekeeper's side. "What's the matter, Martha?" he said kindly. "Are
you ill?"
"Very bad, Sir. I beg your pardon for sitting, but I could not help; and
the gentleman will excuse me."
"Of course--but what's the matter?" said Richard.
"A sudden fright like, Sir. I'm all over on a tremble," she quavered.
"See how exquisitely that hand is painted," continued Mr. Longcluse,
pursuing his criticism, "and the art with which the lights are managed.
It is a wonderful picture. It makes one positively angry to see it in
that state, and anywhere but in the most conspicuous and honourable
place. If I owned that picture, I should never be tired showing it. I
should have it where everyone who came into my house should see it; and
I should watch every crack and blur on its surface, as I should the
symptoms of a dying child, or the looks of the mistress of my heart. Now
just look at this. Where is he? Oh!"
"I beg your pardon, a thousand times, but I find my old friend Martha
feels a little faint and ill," said Richard.
"Dear me! I hope she's better," said Mr. Longcluse, approaching with
solicitude. "Can I be of any use? Shall I touch the bell?"
"I'm better, Sir, I thank you; I'm much better," said the old woman. "It
won't signify nothing, only--" She was looking hard again at Mr.
Longcluse, who now seemed perfectly at his ease, and showed in his
countenance nothing but the commiseration befitting the occasion. "A
sort of a weakness--a fright like--and I can't think, quite, what came
over me."
"Don't you think a glass of wine might do her good?" asked Mr.
Longcluse.
"Thanks, Sir, I don't drink it. Oh, lighten our darkness, we beseech
thee! Good Lord, a' mercy on us! I take them drops, hartshorn and
valerian, on a little water, when I feel nervous like. I don't know when
I was took wi' t' creepins before."
"You look better," said Richard.
"I'm quite right again, Sir," she said, with a sigh. She had taken her
"drops," and seemed restored.
"Hadn't you better have one of the maids with you? I'm going now; I'll
send some one," he said. "You must get all right, Martha. It pains me to
see you ill. You're a very old friend, remember. You must be all right
again; and, if you like, we'll have the doctor out, from town."
He said this, holding her thin old hand very kindly, for he was by no
means without good-nature. So sending the promised attendant, he and
Longcluse proceeded to the billiard-room, where, having got the lamps
lighted, they began to enjoy their smoke. Each, I fancy, was thinking of
the little incident in the housekeeper's room. There was a long silence.
"Poor old Tansey! She looked awfully ill," said Richard Arden at last.
"By Jove! she did. Is that her name? She rather frightened me," said Mr.
Longcluse. "I thought we had stumbled on a mad woman--she stared so. Has
she ever had any kind of fit, poor thing?"
"No. She grumbles a good deal, but I really think she's a healthy old
woman enough. She says she was frightened."
"We came in too suddenly, perhaps?"
"No, that wasn't it, for I knocked first," said Arden.
"Ah, yes, so you did. I only know she frightened me. I really thought
she was out of her mind, and that she was going to stick me with a
knife, perhaps," said Mr. Longcluse, with a little laugh and a shrug.
Arden laughed, and puffed away at his cigar till he had it in a glow
again. Was this explanation of what he had seen in Longcluse's
countenance--a picture presented but for a fraction of a second, but
thenceforward ineffaceable--quite satisfactory?
In a short time Mr. Longcluse asked whether he could have a little
brandy and water, which accordingly was furnished. In his first glass
there was a great deal of brandy, and very little water indeed; and his
second, sipped more at his leisure, was but little more diluted. A very
faint flush tinged his pallid cheeks.
Richard Arden was, by this time, thinking of his own debts and ill-luck,
and at last he said, "I wonder what the art of getting on in the world
is. Is it communicable? or is it no art at all, but a simple run of
luck?"
Mr. Longcluse smiled scornfully. "There are men who have immense faith
in themselves," said he, "who have indomitable will, and who are
provided with craft and pliancy for any situation. Those men are giants
from the first to the last hour of action, unless, as happened to
Napoleon, success enervates them. In the cradle, they strangle serpents;
blind, they pull down palaces; old as Dandolo, they burn fleets and
capture cities. It is only when they have taken to bragging that the
_lues Napoleonica_ has set in. Now I have been, in a sense, a successful
man--I am worth some money. If I were the sort of man I describe, I
should be worth, if I cared for it, ten times what I have in as many
years. But I don't care to confess I made my money by flukes. If, having
no tenderness, you have two attributes--profound cunning and perfect
audacity--nothing can keep you back. I'm a common-place man, I say; but
I know what constitutes power. Life is a battle, and the general's
qualities win."
"I have not got the general's qualities, I think; and I know I haven't
luck," said Arden; "so for my part I may as well drift, with as little
trouble as may be, wherever the current drives. Happiness is not for all
men."
"Happiness is for _no_ man," said Mr. Longcluse. And a little silence
followed. "Now suppose a fellow has got more money than ever he dreamed
of," he resumed, "and finds money, after all, not quite what he fancied,
and that he has come to long for a prize quite distinct and infinitely
more precious; so that he finds, at last, that he never can be happy for
an hour without it, and yet, for all his longing and his pains, sees it
is unattainable as that star." (He pointed to a planet that shone down
through the skylight.) "Is that man happy? He carries with him, go where
he may, an aching heart, the pangs of jealousy and despair, and the
longing of the damned for Paradise. That is _my_ miserable case."
Richard Arden laughed, as he lighted his second cigar.
"Well, if that's your case, you can't be one of those giants you
described just now. Women are not the obdurate and cruel creatures you
fancy. They are proud, and vain, and unforgiving; but the misery and the
perseverance of a lover constitute a worship that first flatters and
then wins them. Remember this, a woman finds it very hard to give up a
worshipper, except for another. Now why should you despair? You are a
gentleman, you are a clever fellow, an agreeable fellow; you are what is
accounted a young man still, and you can make your wife rich. They all
like that. It is not avarice, but pride. I don't know the young lady,
but I see no good reason why you should fail."
"I wish, Arden, I dare tell you all; but some day I'll tell you more."
"The only thing is---- You'll not mind my telling you, as you have been
so frank with me?"
"Pray say whatever you think. I shall be ever so much obliged. I forget
so many things about English manners and ways of thinking--I have lived
so very much abroad. Should I be put up for a club?"
"Well, I should not mind a club just yet, till you know more
people--quite time enough. But you must manage better. Why should those
Jew fellows, and other people, who don't hold, and never can, a position
the least like yours, be among your acquaintance? You must make it a
rule to drop all objectionable persons, and know none but good people.
Of course, when you are strong enough it doesn't so much matter,
provided you keep them at arm's length. But you passed your younger days
abroad, as you say, and not being yet so well known here, you will have
to be particular--don't you see? A man is so much judged by his
acquaintance; and, in fact, it is essential."
"A thousand thanks for any hints that strike you," said Longcluse
good-humouredly.
"They sound frivolous; but these trifles have immense weight with
women," said Arden. "By Jove!" he added, glancing at his watch, "we
shall be late. Your trap is at the door--suppose we go?"